Not very.
Via Polinaut, we discover that Larry Sabato has put Tim Walz on his list of the Freshman Fifteen.
Sabato is far away from the prairies of Minnesota, where we remember his November 6, 2006 prediction in the First when Sabato put the seat in his "Ferocious Fifty" list:
November 6, 2006 Update:
Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R) will win reelection over Tim Walz (D). . .
Some of the information in his most recent assessment is quite curious. Sabato has the seat leaning both Democratic (in the outlook) and Republican (in the short text). Moreover, Sabato still lights a candle for the return of Gil Gutknecht, and mistakes the pent-up ambitions and numbers of GOP contenders with strength as candidates. Conservative columnist Barry Casselman was more astute in a recent interview in Roll Call:
"So far there's been nothing remarkable about the Republican field," Casselman said.
Someone could come along and prove formidable but, at this early date, that is not the case, Casselman added.
No doubt about it: the 2008 race is starting early. And if these early signs hold true throughout the campaign cycle, it looks as if the GOP will engage in negative bombast, while Walz and his allies stress his work on veterans issues, ethics reform, agriculture, rural development and transportation, and his extreme accessibility to his constitutents, whether in the district or in DC.
The Mankato Free Press had noted before the election that if Walz were to work as hard in Washington as he had in campaigning, he would make a good congressman. So far, that seems to be the case--though scholars at the University of Minnesota may not be able to see what's on the ground in Southern Minnesota.
Fun stuff and a disclosure: Summer festivals are in fun swing in rural Minnesota. One special event in Waseca beginning today will help the surviving members of the Kruger family, who were the victims of a brutal home invasion and double murder this winter. The Kruger Aid Fest began last night. Tomorrow night features a rock concert with a lineup that includes Golden Smog and City Mouse, as well as one of Bluestem Prairie's first readers last summer, Fast Annie McLoone. McLoone is a Waseca native.
The Worthington Daily Globe covers this weekend's windsurfing regatta on Lake Okabena and music festival, the Post Bulletin touts Winona's cultural boom (Shakespeare and Beethoven festivals, as well as strong summer theatre) and there's music in a quarry near Mankato. Yeah, it's that quarry--the very one.
The Mankato Free Press has a pretty good roster of area summer festivals in south central Minnesota; The Lee Groups's River Valley Newspapers provides this list for the Coulie area in SE Minnesota.
Disclosure: We have to miss any fun this weekend because we're going out to Washington DC on Sunday to be trained as citizen-advocates by the Audubon Society. We'll be arguing for conservation measures in the 2007 Farm Bill (for us, this is hitting the trifecta: birding, politics and the Farm Bill).
BSP will post from within the Beltway, where we promise to keep our bull detector until we return to God's country late Wednesday. We're meeting with members of Minnesota's congressional delegation (or their staff) who are on House and Senate Ag commitees It's for the ducks. For the pintail ducks, a lovely prairie bird.
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