Over at DailyKos, Mark27 suggests "A Geographic Formula for Victory for Tim Walz."
We don't necessarily agree with all of his conclusions--Rochester looks more promising for Walz than Mark27 believes and newspapers in the Fillmore-Houston County area are already hammering Gutknecht; we hear that National Guard members in the New Ulm area are strong on their retired Command Sgt. Major. Nor has Walz seen fit to dodge any issue--including immigration policy (campaign white paper here).
We do share Mark27's hope that Walz will spend more time and effort in the First's DFL-leaning western counties.
He concludes:
In the next nine weeks, Tim Walz has a lot of ground to cover if he hopes to unseat a six-term incumbent. One point that he needs to be relentless about pounding into voters' brains is that Gutknecht is breaking his self-imposed term limit by running this year. This would not have been a successful tactic had it been employed in 2002 or 2004, but the timing couldn't be better in 2006 with Gutknecht waffling on key issues and with a national consensus about the need to throw the bums out.
The Winona Daily News pounded Gutknecht today over his staff's attempt to edit his Wikipedia entry to conceal that term-limit promise. Perhaps the independent press will continue to spread the word, and Walz can continue to focus on voter contact, campaigning throughout the district while running issue-based ads.
Dan Solis' Blog includes video of Al Franken's appearance on Letterman. Franken brought up campaigning for Walz in St. Peter:
"Al then began to talk about how he was at a campaign appearance for Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party House candidate Tim Walz in St. Peter, Minnesota. He said that during a parade some woman yelled to him, “Go home!” He then told her that he was grew up in Minnesota. Her response was, “Ohh.” She quickly changed her mind about Al.
Here's a flashback to the Independence Day parade: a photo slide show that illustrates how Franken was greeted in St. Peter, more photos, and this blog entry (awww)."
In Winona, hundreds attended a Franken fundraiser for Walz. We anticipate a press release from Minnesota's grouchiest neighbor about the Franken appearance--but growing evidence suggests it's not the Tim Walz campaign that's out of touch with voters in the Fighting First.
Over at Vox Verax, Tom Maertens shares articles from the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times about how more GOP House districts are seen as vulnerable.
Lead paragraphs from the WaPo article, "More GOP Districts Counted as Vulnerable; Number Doubled Over the Summer":
Facing the most difficult political environment since they took control of Congress in 1994, Republicans begin the final two months of the midterm campaign in growing danger of losing the House while fighting to preserve at best a slim majority in the Senate, according to strategists and officials in both parties.
Over the summer, the political battlefield has expanded well beyond the roughly 20 GOP House seats originally thought to be vulnerable. Now some Republicans concede there may be almost twice as many districts from which Democrats could wrest the 15 additional seats they need to take control.
OLLIE OX UPDATE: Minnesota Central takes a look at corporate interests, Mark Kennedy, and John Thune (R-DM & E) in today's update.
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