Is Gil Gutknecht rattled?

It's been quite a couple of weeks for Gil Gutknecht in the national media.  His remarks on Iraq, the lawsuit asking for his deletion from the ballot, and his staff's excellent editing adventures at Wikipedia drew widespread attention, much of it likely unwelcome.

Friends ask me if Representative Gutknecht is feeling the heat of the coverage and Tim Walz's relentless campaigning. People: we're not that close.

Leigh Pomeroy has pointed out a key difference in Gutknecht's campaign plan from 2004 to 2006: he's agreeing to meet his opponent in ag-related forums.  Agricultural policy is thought to be his strength.

In reading newspapers around MN-01, it's obvious that Gutknecht is running a very traditional incumbency campaign. He shows up at a ground breaking for a project that was funded by USDA Rural Development funds, travels around with an Undersecretary of Ag,  attends local dinners, and sits down for friendly chats with small town newspaper reporters and editors.

Increasingly, though, it's clear that the local reporters are asking questions based on the national feed. And, as in the case of the Pipestone Star and New Ulm Journal articles, Gil Gutknecht's responses appear to be predicated on the notion that the small town readership won't read beyond the pages of the local paper, nor will his remarks be picked up beyond the county line.  It's not unlike the White House strategy of granting regional editors access to the president during his flyarounds while shutting out the national media.

Is this the wisest strategy? My Twin City friends can be forgiven--I suppose--for assuming that rural Minnesota still labors in the digital dark ages. Those of us who live out here know that's not the case for much of Greater Minnesota. While some still use dial-up connections, broadband and satellite internet access are sweeping across the prairie. 

What is said in Pipestone or New Ulm can be read in Rochester or Washington D.C. or Mankato.  Minnesota Central was the first blog after BSP to pick up on Gutknecht's comparison of Iraq and Vietnam (a comparison that the Republican party has scorned in Democrats).  We're thinking that his remarks about the Wikipedia editing will travel far beyond New Ulm.

And today's debate at the Steele County Fair will not be kept behind the subscription firewall of the Owatonna People's Press, for at least two bloggers will be in the audience. We, for one, hope to post photos.

Yesterday, our advance material about the debate drew our second highest number of unique visitors in the short history of this site, with folks coming in from the Citizens League to ordinary MN-01 citizens. What might have been an attraction for Steele County residents now may well draw a larger audience.

We will be gone for most of the day, but hope the riches of the Steele County Free Fair won't tucker us out so much we can't write up the forum tonight.

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