A Bluestem Prairie

Evening edition: Gutknecht bids farewell to the First, DM & E, costly campaigns, and ICE raids

Agri-news and KEYC: More fond farewells from Gil Gutknecht
Agri-news caught up with Representative Gutknecht in Chicago for the article Gutknecht wrapping up 12 years in Washington, D.C. Gutknecht shares thoughtful reflection about ag policy making:

It will also be increasingly important for lawmakers to talk to one another. Rural lawmakers will need to communicate in a way that their urban and suburban counterparts understand.

"If they don't we risk something that we've taken for granted since America became a country--that is an unlimited supply of young farmers who are willing to go out and take a chance at it," Gutknecht said.

Rural, urban and suburban folks are interdpendent, he added.

Mankato's CBS affiliate, KEYC-TV 12, reports on Gutknecht's final official visit to Mankato. Video available  with the story.  Representative Gutknecht assesses the reasons for his loss:

He says the war, combined with corruption within his party, the DM &E railroad controversy and widespread anti-Republican sentiment cost him the election. "Against the backdrop of what was a very strong democratic year, it just became too much for me to overcome."

Speaking of DM & E: City Pages looks at "Political Freight"
The City Pages provides an overview to the DM & E fight. Money quote at the article's conclusion comes from Larry Kaufman, a columnist and former transportation editor for Business Week:

. . .the real problem is the financial structure of the deal. "If there is economic merit to the DM&E proposal, then there are people in our society whose business it is to finance these things," he says. "And why, if there is no merit, is the federal government interested in financing it?"

Almanac video clip posted
Friday's discussion with Walz, Ellison, and Bachmann is available online here.

Money, it's a shame: fundraising in the First reaches $2.58 million
The Strib takes a look at politcal fundraising in Minnesota in Record-setting political fundraising this year may be prelude to '08:

And the Democratic congressional candidates were the biggest fundraisers, outraising Republican candidates by just under $1 million.

The Sixth District race between Republican Rep.-elect Michele Bachmann and Democrat Patty Wetterling, which broke the fundraising record for a U.S. House race in Minnesota, brought in $5.7 million.

And the First District, where Democratic Rep.-elect Tim Walz ousted 12-year incumbent Gil Gutknecht, generated $2.58 million. Those two races made up roughly 51 percent of the total raised for the state's House races.

Given the construction of the above paragraphs, Star Tribune readers might be forgiven for thinking Walz out raised and spent Gutknecht: this was not the case.

Competition drives money, said Larry Jacobs, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota. "It's a purple state. It's a competitive state," he said. [snip]

The next elections could lure record amounts of money.

Jacobs predicted that the 2008 Senate DFL primary to pick a candidate to run against Coleman will be a "whopper" that could break fundraising records.

It's too early to tell what kind of dollars the House races will generate in two years, but the races in the First and Sixth districts could be a sequel to 2006. Both Walz and Bachmann will be vulnerable, Jacobs said.

PiPress: Protests at Senator Coleman's St. Paul office
The Pioneer Press reports that 200 people gathered at Senator Coleman's St. Paul office to protest the raid and arrests in Worthington:

They came to tell the stories they say aren't being told.

In the wake of last Tuesday's raids at Swift & Co. meatpacking plants in Worthington, Minn., and five other states, a group of about 200 people gathered Monday afternoon outside the St. Paul offices of U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman to condemn the federal action and demand immigration reform.

After a 40-minute rally, a smaller group walked into the Republican senator's office and read stories about families affected by the Minnesota roundup of more than 200 workers on alleged immigration violations.

"One woman is pregnant and is terrified to leave her home. She'll only communicate by telephone," said Patrick Leet, an activist who collected stories last weekend in Worthington. "She's psychologically devastated."

The stories were told to Coleman's staff members; rally organizers were informed that the senator is out of the country. A few of the people visiting the office said the storytelling was necessary because the government is using accusations of identity theft as an excuse to round up undocumented workers.

"The only identity fraud that's going on here is people having to leave their countries" and their families to find work in the United States, said Eduardo Cardenas of the Center for Labor Rights. . . .

Workday Minnesota has posted video clips from Worthington along with an article: Fear remains in wake of Worthington raid.

Walz: grassroots politics can still trump money

A short dispatch in the Strib notes that Gil Gutknecht outspent Tim Walz:

Money doesn't always have the last word in politics

Money talks in politics, but it was a little less loquacious in Minnesota this year. A study by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics found that the biggest spender was victorious in 93 percent of House races and 67 percent of Senate races on Nov. 7. There were only 38 races, including three in Minnesota, where the winning candidate was outspent by the losing candidate.

In Minnesota's Senate race, Republican Rep. Mark Kennedy outspent Democrat Sen.-elect Amy Klobuchar by a slight margin. And in House races, Republican Michele Bachmann and Democrat Tim Walz were outspent by Democrat Patty Wetterling and Republican Rep. Gil Gutknecht.

Walz said grass-roots politics can still trump money. "I'm not arrogant enough to think the national political environment didn't have a lot to do with this, but I also think that shortchanges the voters," he said. "And it especially shortchanges those people who were supporters of ours. We've been at this for two years, and my staff and I traveled relentlessly."

CRP's Open Secrets has posted profiles of  new members and where they secured the money to run. The lion's share of the pie for Walz came from individual donors, who supplied 72.2% of his campaign funds. Geographically, Walz raised 80.7% of his money from within Minnesota. 

Gutknecht, on the other hand, received only 54% of his money this cycle from individual donors. Geographically, 86.5% of his funds were from sources within Minnesota.

CQ Politics notes the difference in fundraising and spending  between the RNC and the DNC in RNC’s Financial Edge Not Enough to Preserve Majority in Congress:

The Republican National Committee (RNC) maintained a decisive advantage over the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in fundraising over the 2005-06 election cycle, as confirmed by the organizations’ periodic reports to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

But even voluminous spending by the Republican committee prior to the Nov. 7 election could not overcome the serious political liabilities that faced GOP candidates — namely public opposition to President Bush, many of his policies, and a critical number of his supporters in the Republican-controlled 109th Congress.

The RNC, in a filing last week to the FEC, reported raising $30.3 million and spending $46 million just between Oct. 19 and Nov. 27 — a 40-day period that straddled Election Day on Nov. 7. The Democratic National Committee reported raising $10.7 million and spending $10.8 million in the same period, according to its “post-general” election report filed with the FEC.

The difference?  Where the money was spent:

The RNC spent most of its late money in transfers to affiliated GOP committees, including state party organizations; the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which orchestrates the party’s national campaign for control of the House; and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which does the same for the Senate.

[snip]

Even with much smaller financial resources at their disposal, the DNC continued its strategy of targeting its resources to state Democratic party organizations in all 50 states — even some that traditionally have strong Republican leanings.

For example, the DNC gave $165,000 in late funds to the Democratic Party in Idaho and $80,000 to the state party organization in Kansas, even though both states voted strongly for President Bush in 2004.

The funds may have abetted Democratic gains in Kansas, a longtime Republican stronghold where Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius easily won her bid for a second term and Democratic challenger Nancy Boyda scored a big upset over Republican Rep. Jim Ryun in the state’s 2nd District — giving the Democrats an even split of the state’s four House seats. The Democrats also staged a serious upset bid in Idaho’s strongly conservative 1st District, where Bush pulled down 68 percent of the vote just two years earlier.

Some Democratic strategists — including James Carville, a former top campaign adviser to President Bill Clinton — argue that Dean should have devoted more resources to assist the party in competitive House and Senate races this year, which they say could have produced even bigger House gains.

But many state Democratic Party chairmen said the election results vindicated Dean’s “50-state” strategy of building, and in some cases resuscitating, Democratic organizations in all of the states.

Boyda, the new representative from Kansas, and Walz thanked the DNC. Walz said:

"Thank you for a vision that I know has been somewhat controversial," said Tim Walz, a newly elected House member from Minnesota. "It was a great use of resources."

Watch C-Span coverage of his remarks via YouTube here.

 

Just say no to tax rebate checks: Rochester LTE

Earlier, we looked at the response in the First District's press to reports of a budget surplus.  We found little call for rebates.  The most strident was written by Steve Drazkowski, who lost his state senate bid to Steve Murphy.  His letter was published in several area papers.

In today's Rochester Post Bulletin, Charles Abendschein responds in Rebates are irresponsible:

Before Steve Drazkowski starts formulating his next campaign strategy, based on piddly rebates to taxpayers, I suggest that he get in his car and make a little drive west to Kenyon.

On the way, he might observe the deplorable condition of Highway 60 from Zumbrota to Kenyon. Checking Highway 57 and Highway 56 would also be a good idea.

When Drazkowski arrives in Kenyon, he should note the patchwork of the city streets. Then I suggest he talk to the mayor and the council about the lack of state funding for maintaining the city's infrastructure. Talk to city employees about how their standard of living measures up to other workers in town. Talk to the city librarian about what cuts in services she has had to make. Look over the old school with the broken windows and graffiti that can't be torn down because of lack of funds.

Go to the Kenyon-Wanamingo High School. Talk to administrators and the school board about program and position cuts.

Then go back to city hall and start a conversation about property taxes. After that, go to the Grill. See if anyone there thinks their property taxes can be lowered with a rebate from the state.

Before he leaves for home, Drazkowski should come over to my house, and I'll explain to him how the Republicans have irresponsibly cut taxes to satisfy irresponsible campaign promises.

In another letter, Russell B. Hanson of Pine Island doesn't quite get into the spirit of bipartisan Christmas cheer with his letter Republicans in need of rehabilitation:

Gil Gutknecht, an auctioneer and soon-to-be former congressman, is looking for a new job after having been found too Republican for the 1st District.

In an Associated Press  interview, he gives his choice new job as an "optimistic conservative radio show host."

Gutknecht does have the right experience, with 16 years of the auctioneer's obfuscating chant, followed by 24 years of the professional politician's pandering chant.

Optimistic conservatism is what President Bush has practiced with Gutknecht's collusion for the last six years and sounds like "We are winning the war in Iraq."

We need a rehabilitation program for former politicians to teach them how to lead productive lives with real jobs.

Some folks would interpret Mr. Hanson's letter as more evidence that the 2006 election was just an anti-Bush vote. Others suggest that in Minnesota at least, there's more to it, and point to changing sentiments about the role of government--and the need for services so concretely expressed in Mr. Abendschein's letter.

For an interesting discussion of what made Minnesota voters tick in 2006, head on over to this post at minntelect.

 

MN-01 Monday morning: "cattail moonshine" and more

NEW ULM JOURNAL: SINS OF OMISSION
The editors of the New Ulm Journal aren't happy about what they read in the House Ethics Committee report on Mark Foley:

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and other House members and staff broke no laws or rules when they didn’t do anything about Rep. Mark Foley and his predeliction for young male pages, according to a House ethics committee report released Frdiay.

But Hastert has no reason to be pleased about the report. That was his reaction when he said there was no violation of House rules found.

The panel found that Hastert and his staff showed “a disconcerting unwillingness to take responsibility for resolving issues regarding Foley’s conduct.”

In other words, they were aware that there was a problem, even if they didn’t know about the salacious instant messages Foley sent to some pages. They did nothing. They let it go, hoping the problem would go away. They ignored the warning signs that started soon after Foley took office in 1995, said the report.

Hastert’s party suffered in the election from this moral failure. It wasn’t the only reason Republicans were swept out of the leadership in the House and Senate, but it was a big symptom of the problem Republicans faced.

As Rep. Gil Gutknecht recounts in an article for Roll Call, printed elsewhere on this page, Republicans lost their way somewhere between their victory in 1994, and their ouster in 2006. They opted to do what was easy, rather than what was right too many times.

When the scandal broke, Gutknecht framed the issue for the New Ulm Journal in this fashion:

Gutknecht said Democrats seem to be overplaying the issue for political advantage, and speculated that an investigation might show House Republican leaders knew “a lot less about this than meet the eye.”

DOWNTOWN JOURNAL ONLINE: MINNEAPOLIS SUPPORTERS HELP GIVE WALZ A WIN
Just in time for the Wellstone Action Election Debrief tomorrow night, Kari Vanderveen reports on another way in which Tim Walz's training at Camp Wellstone helped put  him over the top in the First: fundraising and volunteers.  It's nice to read that there were people in the Twin Cities who could see beyond the conventional wisdom they read in the Strib:

Walz estimates he was in Minneapolis dozens of times for fundraising events that, toward the end of his campaign, raised thousands of dollars per hour. Joel Bergstrom, the chair of Senate District 60, hosted one fundraiser for Walz that raised an estimated $6,000. Bergstrom was part of a Camp Wellstone class - a training program for progressive political action designed to give people the tools to run for office or be politically involved - that included Walz and a number of other Minneapolis political figures, including Councilmembers Elizabeth Glidden (8th Ward) and Ralph Remington (10th Ward) and Secretary of State-elect Mark Ritchie. The classmates have stayed in contact, and Bergstrom led the effort to increase support for Walz in Minneapolis. It was important for Walz to garner the support of Minneapolis DFLers, Bergstrom said, because political fundraising is more difficult in the First Congressional District.

"The money is just not as prevalent down there in terms of political fundraising, no matter who you are - a national candidate, a local candidate, whoever," Bergstrom said. "That's not where you raise a lot of money. So you have to come up here."

But Walz said just as important as the fundraisers were the more than 1,000 Minneapolis residents who volunteered to work phone banks and knock on doors in the First Congressional District. Carloads of Minneapolis residents would show up in the Southern Minnesota district, Walz said, and ask his staff what they could do to help. That, he said, boosted the enthusiasm of his volunteers and the district's constituents.

"They saw it as the cavalry coming in," Walz said. "There was almost a sense of pride that they were coming to help. It was a real unifying thing."

Karen Sandberg, a 64-year-old retiree who lives in the First Congressional District city of Oronoco and is Glidden's mother-in-law, said at first she was surprised at the number of volunteers who arrived from Minneapolis and other areas outside the district. But she said she enjoyed working with all of the volunteers and never felt any tension between the district's residents and those who came from others areas of the state to help out.

"I think we all felt like we were in it together," said Sandberg, who started out driving to Rochester to work the phone banks once a week, but was volunteering almost every day toward the end of the campaign.

Glidden said she thinks what attracted her mother-in-law to Walz's campaign is what drew Minneapolis residents to it as well - his charismatic personality and background as a high school teacher, coach and National Guard solider.

"They saw this was a guy who really could win," Glidden said.

Wellstone Action Executive Director Jeff Blodgett worked with Walz during the Camp Wellstone class almost two years ago. While he was impressed with Walz, he admits he thought it might take a second attempt at running for office before Walz made it to Capitol Hill. Blodgett said Walz exceeded almost all of his expectations, including his ability to generate support in the metro area.

"Everyone tries to come to the [Twin] Cities to build support," Blodgett said. "I think Tim had stronger metro-area support than anyone I've seen."

Walz told supporters gathered at Linden Hills resident Tom Braun's home - where they were greeted with a long marquee proclaiming "It's Walz Time!" - that residents of Senate District 60, which covers Downtown south of 7th Street and most of Southwest, were especially crucial in helping boost his campaign. He said garnering regional support is important because the issues he's going to work on in Washington, D.C. don't stop at the border of the First Congressional District.

Councilmember Remington said that's exactly why many Minneapolis residents were invested in Walz's campaign.

"We know it's a regional thing. It's a statewide thing. We have to think beyond our parochial boundaries and about what we're trying to accomplish," Remington said.

And to think that MPR found experts who thought this race was about how Gil Gutknecht combed his hair.

More coverage by Vanderdeen of Walz's Camp Wellstone alumni experience here, from July.

MANKATO FREE PRESS: "CATTAIL MOONSHINE"
The Mankato Free Press takes a look at local research into using cattails as an alternate feedstock for ethanol production in From cattails to car tanks: MSU profs look to wetlands for ethanol options.  Conservationists and hunters shouldn'tfret about exploitation of existing wetlands; the study's authors are recommending reestablishing now-vanished wetlands that were drained for crop poduction:

When it comes to capturing and storing the sun’s energy, wetlands might be the most efficient of any ecosystem around, according to Minnesota State University biology Professor Gregg Marg.

So with industry and science looking at plant matter as a replacement for foreign oil, Marg is studying whether wetlands could be a new source of ethanol. Marg and chemistry Professor James Rife have obtained a federal grant to convert wetland plants into ethanol and measure how feasible and productive the process might be.

For biomass produced per acre, wetlands are extraordinary, Marg said.

“Northern wetlands are some of the biggest producers, along with rain forests,” he said, something that’s even more remarkable because northern wetlands generate all of their growth in about six months of the year.

Marg cautions that the research isn’t aimed at potentially fueling cars by harvesting the nation’s last remaining natural wetlands.

“We’re talking about wetlands that don’t exist currently and that we could re-establish,” he said.

Along with being an energy source, the reconstituted wetlands could provide enormous environmental benefits, according to Marg. Wetlands clean pollutants from water before it enters rivers, they help restore aquifers and they reduce flooding along rivers.

And because wetlands created for the ethanol industry would be harvested in late fall, they would still be a valuable habitat for waterfowl — which nest in the spring and would likely have migrated by harvest time, Marg said.

Of the millions of acres of wetlands once sprinkled across Minnesota, fewer than 2 percent remain because so many have been drained for farming and development. If restoring wetlands produced dependable income for farmers, many of those former wetlands could be brought back.

“I’ve got to think it’s possible at least, or I wouldn’t spend my time on it,” Marg said.  .  . . [read the rest]

Sunny prairie Saturday morning new digest: Gutknecht says goodbye again and more

ROCHESTER POST BULLETIN: FROMMER ON GUTKNECHT'S GOOD-BYE
The Post-Bulletin runs Frederick Frommer's AP article Gutknecht contemplates life after Congress.  Gutknecht opens with an analogy:

Ask Rep. Gil Gutknecht if he'll ever mount another run for Congress, and the colorful lawmaker has a quick rejoinder.

"That's a little like asking a woman who's just come out of a 38-hour labor and delivered a 12-pound baby, 'Well, don't you want to get pregnant again?"' he said. "Not today."

But Gutknecht and his fellow Minnesota GOP House member, Mark Kennedy, don't rule out future runs for office. They're just focused on the more immediate right now: life after Congress.

Gutknecht, a 12-year House veteran, lost his re-election campaign to Democrat Tim Walz. Kennedy, after six years in the House, tried to jump to the Senate, but he lost to Democrat Amy Klobuchar.

"The honest truth is the political virus seldom leaves the bloodstream," Gutknecht, 55, said in a telephone interview this week, but added, "I've been here, done that."

A virus and going through labor: Gutknecht's metaphors tend to discuss the electoral process as medical events.   Not fun.

Gutknecht's future plans:

Gutknecht said he's interested in business opportunities in renewable energy, new technologies, and international trade. But his true dream seems to be landing a gig hosting a radio show.

"I'd like to start with 35 stations, and build to 100. Eventually, I'd like to take it national," said Gutknecht, who has hosted a weekly radio show in Minnesota called "Conversations with the Congressman."

He said he'd offer a "conservative viewpoint with an optimistic tone," saying there was a void for that. And Gutknecht said he might do some auctioneering again.

Neither lawmaker expressed an interest in working as a lobbyist, although Gutknecht wouldn't close the door on it.

"I don't really want to do it, but if they dangle enough money in front of me, I may not have any choice," he said with a laugh.

Uh-huh.  Nice to know in case Gutknecht ever runs for office again.   On his loss:

Both lawmakers said their losses were part of a wave that swept Democrats into control.

"It was not a good year for those with 'R' beside their name," said Kennedy, citing the Iraq war as a particular drag for Republicans. Gutknecht agreed.

"It was the war more than anything else," he said.

Kennedy said he was proud of his work to expand ethanol and cut taxes. Gutknecht said he was proud to be "my own man" on issues, such as legislation to allow people to import prescription drugs from Canada, which he pushed over the objections of the Bush administration.

Gutknecht said he was leaving Congress with mixed emotions.

"In some respects, it's sad," he said. "In some respects, it's kind of exciting. Life is interesting to interesting people. I have to believe the next chapter will be as exciting."

FAIRMONT SENTINEL: ROSEN EAGER TO GET BACK TO WORK
More excitement in Senate District 24, where senator Julie Rosen (R-Fairmont) tells the local paper she has no qualms about working with Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller. In fact, they get along "very well" in

Rosen looking forward to session:

Despite a larger Democratic party majority in the Minnesota Senate this year, Fairmont Republican Julie Rosen is looking forward to the upcoming legislative session.

“I’m really excited for this session; to get back to work,” Rosen said. “Not just because I have an aggressive agenda, but to work with Sen. Pogemiller and the team he has set up. I am looking forward to working with Pogemiller, I get along very well with him.”

Later in the article, the reporter takes some of that good will back:

Her anticipation of getting back into the legislative swing not withstanding, Rosen is concerned about the makeup of the DFL majority’s leadership. In the past, Senate leaders have included members representing rural areas, but now the leadership consists of a strictly metro-area bunch.

Now, since that's not a direct quote from Rosen, so we don't want readers attributing the "strictly metro-area bunch" description of DFL senate majority leadership to her. It could just be the way the  Sentinel reporter chose to paraphrase something Rosen said.

We're curious if folks in St. Cloud who are represented state by senator Tarryl Clark consider themselves part of "a strictly metro-bunch."  We're guessing not; nor is St. Cloud included in any standard definition of the metro area.  Clark is the new Assistant Majority Leader.

Here's St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis's take on Clark, who challeged him twice while he was the state senator for the district, from a recent St. Cloud Times article:

. . . St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis said Clark's new status is the best bet the area has for getting things such as increased state aid to local governments.

"Especially on local issues, there's an ability to influence your peers because they elected you to your position in the first place, so you have their respect," said Kleis, who served as assistant minority leader during his Republican Senate career. "Plus, the Minneapolis DFL leadership will be eager to show that they're not just looking out for the Twin Cities."

It looks as if that "Minneapolis DFL leadership"  boils down to Pogemiller and Kelliher, neither of whom have chosen to concentrate deputy leadership posts or committee chairs within the Minneapolis city limits. 

Back to the article. Rosen doesn't see much call for a tax rebate:

As for a tax rebate, she does not see much hope for one.

“Seriously, I have not talked to anyone for it,” she noted. “I think that it will be interesting to see if anyone wants a rebate.”

Ask Marty Seifert and Tim Pawlenty.

DM & E AND THE WINONA STUDENT SENATE: WE AT WSU, OPPOSE DM& E
Jason at I Don't Hate America blogs more about the Winona Student Senate in We at WSU, Oppose DM&E. A good round-up of coverage of the student resolution, though Bluestem Prairie is just another grassroots hick blog, not a news network.

STRIB: PRAIRIE GRASSES BEAT CORN
Speaking of grassroots, we're pretty partial to native prairie grasses, as our name attests, and a friend who is a policy wonk on renewable fuels told us in September that the energy potential in bluestem is quite high.

We knew that.

But now a study is out that suggests that a mix of native prairie grasses grown on marginal land beats corn as a feedstock for making ethanol.  We didn't know that, having only read about the potential of switchgrass--which, like corn, demands high-quality soil and intensive cultivation.

The Strib reports:

World demand for fuel and food is projected to double in the next 50 years. Now, researchers at the University of Minnesota have concluded that corn may not be up to the task of filling both stomachs and gas tanks.

"Unless we produce food and biofuel in an efficient manner, they will be directly competing with each other," said David Tilman, regents professor of ecology at the University of Minnesota. "We will have high prices for both."

University researchers, led by Tilman, think they've found a solution -- supply the facilities that make ethanol with a diverse mixture of prairie grasses instead of corn. The grasses not only can produce more net energy per acre than corn but they also act as a sponge for greenhouse gases before being harvested, soaking them out of the air and into their roots and surrounding soil, the researchers found.

The last trait could prove an economic bonus for farmers if businesses one day are able to cash in "credits" for removing greenhouse gases from the air, as many predict. Clean air credits already are traded in Europe.

Nearly 100 ethanol plants consuming corn have sprung up across the country. A director of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association has warned that supplanting corn with grasses would be a complex, costly task that could take years.

But in an interview, Tilman contended that prairie grasses could represent a new cheap-to-produce cash crop that would be more of an opportunity than threat to farmers.

In a cover story published today in Science magazine, the researchers reported that a field planted with a medley of prairie grasses and flowering plants packed more than triple the energy of single-variety grasses. The study also estimated that mixed prairie grasses grown on marginal farmland would yield 51 percent more energy per acre than corn cultivated on fertile land.

The prairie grasses were grown on depleted land without fertilizers and pesticides commonly used for corn. The grasses require almost no maintenance, so less gasoline and diesel fuel would be burned tending to fields.

Harvesting and processing a hectare (about 2.5 acres) of grasslands produces about three-tenths of a metric ton of carbon dioxide, the researchers calculated. But in the first 10 years, the grasses absorb 4.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide. In other words, the prairie grasses absorb about 14 times more greenhouse gas than is released in producing grass-based fuel.

Tilman led researchers studying grass crops planted at the Cedar Creek Natural History Area in central Minnesota.

President Bush has touted research into making ethanol from switchgrass. But the researchers found that a single species of grass is far less promising as material for ethanol production than is a blend of prairie grasses. They studied 16 varieties.

"Switchgrass is very productive when it's grown like corn, in fertile soil with lots of fertilizer, pesticide and energy inputs, but this approach doesn't yield as much energy gain as mixed species in poor soil, nor does it have the same environmental effects," Jason Hill, a post-doctoral researcher who worked with Tilman, said in a statement.

Only the abstract of the Science article and the study's supporting materials are available free online.  We'll see if we can dig up a full-text copy of the article.

The Strib reports on the reaction of corn growers to the study. It's mixed, especialy since those marginal lands are heavily committed to conservation efforts:

Ron Obermoller, a corn and soybean grower in Brewster, Minn., said he believes corn will remain king in ethanol production. He owns shares of two Minnesota ethanol plants and is a director of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association. He doubts the government ever will free farmland set aside for conservation in order to grow prairie grasses for harvest.

"I'm not sure we've got idle land," he said. Conservation land is home to ducks and pheasants and provides hunting grounds and extra revenue for farmers, Obermoller said.

On the other hand, if the economics are favorable, he sees benefits in grass cultivation -- even for farmers who now grow corn. While the price of corn is high enough to justify the cost of shipping it great distances, the market prices of prairie grasses are likely to be much lower, dictating clustering of ethanol production plants near the grass fields, he said.

"Instead of having big plants, we will have hundreds of smaller plants," he said. "That gives the farmers the chance to invest locally."

That's an interesting model for local rural development.  Can a balance between biofuels and pheasant habitat be reached? Stay tuned.

 

Friday morning digest: DM & E news from all over the place, and more

WINONA STUDENT SENATE DM & E RESOLUTION UPDATE
The Winona Daily News carries the story of Winona State student opposition to the DM & E expansion.  The railroad's tracks run through the campus. 

Over in Rochester, the Post-Bulletin's Government Center blog gets schooled on the student senate by reading Cyberindee after calling the student senate's press release "cute."

"Cute" isn't a word I'd ever use to describe student activists in Winona. No, after watching Jason Bauman and others organize for Walz and other candidates on the Winona State campus,  I'd call them stone-cold effective.

WINONA DAILY NEWS
Sharon Ropes and Gene Pelowski are chomping at the bit to get work done, according to the Daily News in Elected, re-elected officials in frantic rush to get up to speed:

Twenty-four hours after winning her state Senate seat last month, Sharon Erickson Ropes was in St. Paul planning for the next legislative session.

That frantic rush to get up to speed seemed to permeate the thoughts of the elected and re-elected officials who spoke at the Winona Area Chamber of Commerce annual legislative forum Thursday.

Ropes, the president of the state Parent Teachers Association, spoke about education and transportation. “We need a better funding formula (for public education),” she said.

She also pledged better funding for southeastern Minnesota roads and bridges.

“We are patching the patches in some cases,” Ropes said.

[snip]

Passing of the gavel

Minnesota Rep. Gene Pelowski will help wield the gavel on the floor of the state House when the speaker is absent.

The Winona Democrat was named one of four Speaker Pro-Tempores.

“I chose these four representatives because I am confident they will rule with civility, fairness and respect for all members of the House,” said Speaker-designate Margaret Anderson Kelliher.

“Our House debate will also be focused on policy, not party or personality,” Pelowski said.

Kelliher will take up the Speaker’s gavel when the House is called into session Jan. 3. She succeeds Rep. Steve Sviggum (R-Kenyon).

Democrats took over the House majority in the November election, gaining the Speaker’s chair, committee chairmanships and other leadership positions occupied by Republicans.

Debate about policy, not party or personality?  Whatever will the Strib find to write about?

KTTC: FREEBORN COUNTY PARTY
While the lead in this TV news report focuses on the victory celebration, Albert Lea area lawmakers Dan Sparks and Robin Brown are looking toward the work to be done in the next legislative session:

ALBERT LEA, MN -- Nearly a month after the elections, some DFLers are still partying in support of their candidates.
 
The DFL of Freeborn County hosted a victory party in Albert Lea for Senator Dan Sparks and State Representative elect Robin Brown.
 
A party organizer said that they expected a better turnout, but the cold weather seemed to convince some supporters to stay at home.
 
Brown said in the last month she's been busy with orientation where she's been learning about legislative procedures.
 
Sparks said he'll try to accomplish what the voters in District 27 would like done.
 
Senator Dan Sparks said this: "they talked to us about education, fully funded education at the state level. They want some health care reform. Obviously that's something they want us to work hard to achieve."
 
Sparks also added that he'll be working with other legislators to try and get some permanent property tax relief.

CENTURY FOUNDATION REPORT: IMMIGRATION'S NEW FRONTIERS

Via an AP story in the Austin Daily Herald, we learn of a new report from the Century Foundation looks at the way in which five states, including Minnesota, have responded to increased immigraton.  Minnesota press release here and opening chapter here, but those who wish to read the whole thing will have to plunk down $15.95. 

The Century Foundation's immigration project web site is also worth a visit.

ROCHESTER POST BULLETIN LTE: JUST ASKING
Brian Brownlow poses a simply question in Imagine Donwtown Derailment:

I'm really curious. What would have been the consequences if the recent DM&E ethanol spill would have occurred in downtown Rochester?

Yesterday, the Post Bulletin praised Senator Coleman's leadership on asking for DM & E mitigation in an editorial: Coleman demonstrates leadership on DM&E.

Funny how hard it is for the senator to earn praise for his move without somebody bringing up Tim Walz's role as well (the readers' comments are fascinating).  This could get to be downright bipartisan, as the fine print shows:

Coleman, Walz and Pawlenty all argue that the DM&E proposal that would run trains through Rochester is unacceptable in its present form.

MANKATO FREE PRESS: NO SIGNATURE ON DM & E AGREEMENT
Speaking of the DM & E railroad, today's Free Press reports that railroad president Kevin Schieffer hasn't signed the community partnership agreement the company negotiated with Mankato:

The agreement includes promises by the railroad to make substantial improvements to the rail corridor through the city that would cost millions of dollars and allow trains to sail through the city without blowing their whistles.

DM&E President Kevin Schieffer said Mankato residents shouldn’t view the decision to leave the agreement unsigned as an indication the railroad isn’t committed to making the improvements.

“If we agreed to do it, we’re going to do it,” Schieffer said.

The agreement, with it’s safety improvements and whistle-free status, is important to the city because the DM&E hopes to undertake a major expansion into the coal-hauling business that would entail sending up to 34 trains, each about a mile long, through Mankato daily.

Construction could begin as early as next year if federal authorities approve a $2.3 billion loan sought by the railroad and completion could come as soon as 2010, although it would likely take the DM&E several years beyond that to be running anywhere close to 17 loaded coal trains and 17 returning trains daily.

Schieffer said the delay in signing the agreement reflects only a desire that Blue Earth County also sign on first, he said.

“If the county signs it, we would do so immediately,” Schieffer said.

Blue Earth County Admin-istrator Dennis McCoy discounts that rationale.

“It’s disingenuous on the railroad’s part,” McCoy said.

The DM&E can negotiate an agreement with the city and a separate agreement with the county to deal with the prospect the railroad might ultimately build a bypass south of the city through rural parts of Blue Earth County, McCoy said. . . .

[snip]

. . .The relationship between the DM&E and the county, however, appears to be less than serene right now. McCoy said the railroad is trying to play the city against the county in refusing to negotiate one-on-one with each local government.

“It’s a negotiating tactic,” McCoy said. “It’s kind of ‘Do it my way or do it my way.’”

About that southern bypass.

USATODAY AND MPR: GUTKNECHT'S THOUGHTS ON LEAVING OFFICE
Gutknecht shares his reflections in USATODAY's Republicans of '94 revolution reflect on '06 and in an audio file at MPR: Minnesota's outgoing congressmen reflect on leaving Washington.

 

Austin Daily Herald editorial: Ousted House members leaving a mess

The editors of the Austin Daily Herald aren't pleased that Ousted House members leaving a mess:

U.S. House Republicans, upset over a thorough pummeling in the November general elections, are eschewing their reponsibilities in favor of making last-minute political stands and leaving incoming Democrats to clean up the mess.

The House is delaying nine spending bills until the new year, leaving the Democrat-controlled House to sort out a budget nightmare when it is installed in January. Republicans also defeated a $4.8 billion drought relief package.

Meanwhile, they've set their sights on symbols of conservativism with no chance of becoming law: specifically, a law to limit fetal pain during late-term abortions by requiring abortion providers to tell women seeking abortions after 20 weeks of gestation that the process will cause the fetus pain - a statement that not all scientists agree with. The patients would then be required in writing to accept or reject fetal anethesia.

The Winona Daily News runs Congress raises pay, leaves early by Steven Thomma:

Running for president a decade ago, Lamar Alexander had a catchy little idea for Congress: Cut their pay and send them home.

This year, Congress had a different idea: Lawmakers raised their pay and knocked off early anyway, even though they failed to complete one of their most basic jobs — financing the government.

Congress planned to adjourn this week after the lightest workload in at least 60 years, leaving nine of 11 appropriations bills for the current fiscal year unfinished. This Republican-led Congress leaves the bills for the incoming Democratic-led Congress, which takes office in January. The bills are needed to finance about $460 billion worth of government — everything that’s not defense-related or on automatic pilot, such as Social Security.

A strong, nonpartisan gesture for Representative-elect Walz might be to donate that pay raise to organizations in the First that are working with First Lady Pawlenty's Military Care Family Initiative. Granted, Tim and Gwen Walz aren't wealthy, but then, they're used to getting by on school teachers' salaries, and can probably make ends meet even on the older congressional pay.

OLLIE OX UPDATE #1
Meredith Salsbery emailed us with a reminder of  Walz's campaign promise to donate any raise until the minimum wage was increased. 

OLLIE OX UPDATE #2
Walz won't get his first Congressional paycheck until the end of January, but he'll definitely be working for the money.  The Washington Post reports about Culture Shock on Capitol Hill: House to Work 5 Days a Week.  Note the response of the press when they find out they'll be working regular hour too (poor babies):

. . .Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the Maryland Democrat who will become House majority leader and is writing the schedule for the next Congress, said members should expect longer hours than the brief week they have grown accustomed to.

"I have bad news for you," Hoyer told reporters. "Those trips you had planned in January, forget 'em. We will be working almost every day in January, starting with the 4th."

The reporters groaned. "I know, it's awful, isn't it?" Hoyer empathized.

For lawmakers, it is awful, compared with what they have come to expect. For much of this election year, the legislative week started late Tuesday and ended by Thursday afternoon -- and that was during the relatively few weeks the House wasn't in recess.

Next year, members of the House will be expected in the Capitol for votes each week by 6:30 p.m. Monday and will finish their business about 2 p.m. Friday, Hoyer said.

With the new calendar, the Democrats are trying to project a businesslike image when they take control of Congress in January. House and Senate Democratic leaders have announced an ambitious agenda for their first 100 hours and say they are adamant about scoring legislative victories they can trumpet in the 2008 campaigns.

Hoyer and other Democratic leaders say they are trying to repair the image of Congress, which was so anemic this year it could not meet a basic duty: to approve spending bills that fund government. By the time the gavel comes down on the 109th Congress on Friday, members will have worked a total of 103 days. That's seven days fewer than the infamous "Do-Nothing Congress" of 1948. . .

MN-01 Thursday morning reader: The Gil Gutknecht long good-bye, and more

FAIRMONT SENTINEL: GUTKNECHT CLOSES FAIRMONT OFFICE
The Fairmont Sentinel talked to Gil Gutknecht while he was in town yesterday to shut down his office, which closes today. Bill Calahan writes:

. . .“The Democrats ran a very strong candidate in Tim Walz, who was very aggressive, and he received a lot of support in his campaign from outside the district,” Gutknecht said.

“Near the end of the campaign, they were running about four to five TV ads for every two of mine,” he said.

“I’m grateful to the people of southern Minnesota for the opportunities they gave me to serve in Congress,” Gutknecht said. “It’s a period in my life that I will never forget.”

Gutknecht said it is too early to decide if he will be a congressional candidate in 2008.

He is interested in being a consultant to renewable energy projects and in setting up a radio show of his commentaries that would be heard on about 50 stations.

“I want to get more involved in start-up projects for renewable energy, so I probably will do consulting work,” Gutknecht said.

“I have been approached about serving on a couple of corporate boards,” he said. “I may serve on two or three corporate boards.

“I want to have my own radio show,” Gutknecht said. “I have had discussions with people about that. I want to speak out on issues. I already have spots on 13 radio stations, and I would like to build it up to a network of at least 50 stations.

“I would talk about issues that I think are especially important,” he said.

Gutknecht said Republicans need to more determined and effective in communicating with the public. He admires the communication skills of former President Ronald Reagan and others in conveying messages to voters on several issues.

“In the last six years, the Bush administration has had such miserable communications with the public,” Gutknecht said. “Just a few weeks ago the administration was still using the term ‘stay the course in Iraq.’”

Besides going up against an opponent in Tim Walz, who had a strong campaign, Gutknecht believes his re-election effort was hindered by national dissatisfaction with the Republican Party over the war in Iraq, with former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and with other unpopular situations.

“It wasn’t as much about me,” Gutknecht said. “Voters wanted to spank the Republicans and the president, and I was the only one they could spank in the voting booth this fall.

“While the results from the election are personally painful for me, in some respects it’s refreshing to know that Democracy still works.”

The U.S. House of Representatives will meet for two weeks in December before Gutknecht’s term expires.

Gutknecht plans to sell his condominium in Washington, D.C., and spend more time in Rochester. He says he will visit Washington, D.C., a few times next year.

KQAD RADIO: GUTKNECHT ELABORATES ON SPANKING
Matt Crosby at KQAD Radio in Luverne had the full reflection about the spanking Gutknecht felt he received:

The day after the election, Gutknecht said one of the first constituents he saw was at a coffee shop in Rochester. The man admitted he hadn't voted for Gutknecht, but then thanked him for doing a great job during his 12 years in Congress.

"I think what he was really trying to say was, we were angry with the president, or we were angry with the policy in Iraq or we were frustrated with the Republican leadership - or whatever it was,” he said. "What he was saying is don't take this personally -- we wanted to give somebody in Washington a spanking, and you were the only paddle we had available."

Gutknecht said serving in Congress has been an honor and that he'll always likely be involved in public policy debates, but isn't sure if he'll be a candidate for elected office again.

With this emphasis on discipline and punishment, we're going to be looking for southern Minnesota's panoptican when we're not busy.

SWING STATE PROJECT: "KEEP AN EYE ON THIS GUY"
Maybe we won't need it with this Swing State Project diarist on the job. A native of southern Minnesota, Mark at Swing State conducts a post mortem on the Minnesota elections. Here's his analysis of the MN-01 race:

I had a feeling in the closing weeks of the campaign that Democrat Tim Walz would pull off a victory in what only a few months earlier seemed like a kamikaze run against six-term Republican incumbent Gil Gutknecht, but I didn't think he'd win by a solid six-point margin. Considering Gutknecht's mid-summer radio ad buys, I don't necessarily think that Gutknecht was unable to see this challenge coming. Nonetheless, his response to the challenge was absolutely abysmal, with boilerplate TV ads where the incumbent couldn't even be bothered to make an appearance in his own commercials and a series of mismatched debate performances where Gutknecht was very clearly on defense at all times and losing badly to the charismatic Walz.

I wrote a diary in September on how Tim Walz could eke out a victory in MN-01 with huge margins in his native Mankato and the college town of Winona, along with fighting Gutknecht to a draw in his native Rochester. In the end, Walz won by huger margins that I would have deemed possible in Mankato and Winona, but also managed to win Rochester by an astounding eight percentage points. Walz outperformed my expectations pretty much everywhere, padding his margin with wins in a few of the more conservative southwestern farm counties. It'll be interesting to see how Walz holds up in 2008 and (hopefully) subsequent election cycles. The one thing that concerns me is that Walz's presence on the campaign trail is his chief asset....and that presence will not be as abundant if he's stuck legislating in DC rather than travelling the district full-time as he did in 2005 and 2006. Nonetheless, an excellent win for Walz, who I saw speak on two occasions and evoked a level of passion that I haven't seen since Paul Wellstone. Keep an eye on this guy. Big things could be coming from him.

MINNESOTA MONITOR: WALZ UPDATE
Leigh Pomeroy wraps up a number of loose threads from the First over at Minnesota Monitor. Go take look.

KTTC exclusive with Gil Gutknecht

Since election day, Representative Gutknecht has kept a low profile. He break his relative silence in an interview with local television station in NewsCenter Exclusive: Sit Down with Gil Gutknecht:

Tom Overlie
KTTC TV
 
ROCHESTER, MN -- It has been an emotional couple of weeks since that fateful November 7th night.
 
That's when 6-term congressman Gil Gutnecht lost a heated battle to his opponent,
Tim Walz.
 
And the congressman has kept fairly quiet since the election until now.
 
We met up with him on monday, before he heads on his final trip back to Washington D.C.  To find out "what's next?"
 
He came in with the republican tide of '94
And he left with the tide of 2006.
 
Congressman Gil Gutknecht has served the First Congressional District for 12 years. But in a few weeks, he'll be concluding that chapter of his life and beginning a new one.
 
And so, over a cup of 'Caribou' coffee, we looked ahead and looked back at his time in office. Including his most recent battle to keep that office.
 
Representative Gil Gutknecht says, "people asked me how I felt on the day after election, and I said relieved. It had gotten to be such a nasty campaign."
 
On the national level , Iraq was perhaps the congressman's weight. Locally, some would say it was DM&E. Going up against a strong Rochester coalition dead-set against increased coal-trains through town.
 
Gutknecht says, "maybe it's my detriment on the dme. In retrospect, politically, I would have been smarter to say "I'm all with you." when you leave this place, whether it's voluntarily or not, you need to leave with a measure of yourself."
 
But that measure extends itself over some big moments in the congressman's 12 years. Playing a role in the 'Contract With America' from the 90's, working on a balanced budget, serving as chairman of a house AG subcommittee, among others. He spearheaded efforts to lower prescription drug costs and earned awards as a friend to the farmer.
 
So what happens to the man when he loses the title and the power?
 
Gutknecht says, "I'm still Gil. I'm curious, and optimistic. And I see the opportunities out there."
 
And those opportunities might include a new nationwide radio show, consulting jobs or perhaps maybe, even another run for office.
 
But until we see those chapters unfold, Gil Gutknecht says he'll continue living a life of no regrets.
 
Gutknecht says, "I've done my best. Let's turn the next page. Let's start the next chapter. And that's where I am."
 
The Congressman's official final day in office is January 3rd.
 
We might also note, the Congressman is a relatively new grandfather and so part of this new chapter in his life, he says, will mean finding more time for his growing family.

Judging from the interview, it's possible that Representative Gutknecht may run for office again.  We're reading blog buzz about challengers to Representative-elect Walz.  BSP will keep readers posted as news develops.

Rochester Post-Bulletin Editorial: Minnesota's junior senator takes a stand on DM&E

Today's Rochester Post Bulletin editorializes on how Minnesota's junior senator takes a stand on DM&E.   The board is pleased with Coleman's move:

. . .This is the kind of support Rochester needs from Coleman. That he took some time getting here is less important than where he is now. . . .

The paper looks at a possible motive for Coleman's new-found support of the Rochester Coalition:

. .  What is certain is that Coleman has, at some point around the time of the last election, had a moment of enlightenment. Perhaps he sees a connection between Rep. Gil Gutknecht's decision not to support Rochester's opposition to the DM&E project and Gutknecht's election defeat. Gutknecht, after all, failed to even carry his home county, Olmsted.

But why and when Coleman came to support Rochester is not what matters. What's important is that the city has gained the vocal support of an important player in the process. Now Coleman has to put his words to action.

Over at the Minnesota Monitor, Leigh Pomeroy has dug up some enlightening election returns from the past few elections that demonstrate why Norm Coleman might be concerned about not letting the Republican base in Rochester slip out of his hands. Go over to Minnesota Monitor to check out the numbers.

Coleman won the Senate in 2002 with 49.53% of the vote to Walter Mondale's  47.34%; the next contest may well be decided by as close a margin.

According to the Minnesota Secretary of State's website, Coleman received 27564 votes, or 52.93 percent of the vote in Olmsted County.  In the same election year, Gutknecht received 33323 votes in Olmsted County, while he lost to Tim Walz in his home county this year. Surely, the willingness of Rochester's voters create such dramatic movement based on this issue can't be lost on Senator Coleman's campaign strategists.

Thune out, tune in with the state's voters: netroots on Coleman and the DM & E

Friday morning, we noted Senator Coleman's change of heart on the D M & E.  While we were away convening with our farmer friends (who do support the DM & E project, truth be told), other voices in the blogosphere weighed in on the news.

DFL Senate wrote Norm Coleman - Beginning the '08 Flip Flops.  Leigh Pomeroy at Minnesota Monitor thought Senator Coleman had seen the light in Minnesota's top two Republicans seem to be getting religion. 

Jon-David at MN Publius chalks the conversion not only to Gutknecht's loss to Walz, but also to South Dakota Senator John Thune's sinking star in the incredible shrinking Republican Senate in After Gutknecht’s Loss, Norm Coleman Flips on DM&E.  Money quote:

His political gain from allying with Thune gone, Coleman shows - again - how his positions change with his personal political situation. When Norm had something to gain from Thune, he was on-board with DM&E and unconcerned about the local opposition from the Mayo Clinic. Now that the winds have shifted and he recognizes how vulnerable he is in Minnesota, Coleman’s position morphs into something more popular.

There might be something to that logic; if we recall correctly, Senator Thune crossed the border to help Mark Kennedy, and we all know how that worked out for the fellow in red & plaid.

Across the border, a Moderate from South Dakota notes that the anti-DM & E torch is being passed from Mark Dayton to Norm Coleman.   Who would have ever thunk it?

Evil Bobby, on the other hand, straight-forwardingly believes The DM &E is Toast.

Get the butter, Norm. 

Winona Daily News: Mr. Walz Goes to Washington

Then we were like those who dream....

It was easy to repeat the Wall Street Journal's line that called Tim Walz "the Republican nightmare."  Harder to frame the race in terms of the energy and hopes of those hundreds engaged in getting Tim Walz elected.

The conclusion of James Bowey's piece in today's Winona Daily News gets it just right:

Chris Schmitter, the campaign’s field director, spent Election Day glued to his laptop, monitoring voter turnout in the campaign’s command center at the Holiday Inn.

The information he was getting from his monitors at polling places around the district indicated high voter turnout.

By 4 p.m., voter turnout in Winona County was 183 percent what they expected — good news for the campaign. By 11 p.m., precinct results were consistently showing Walz with a 53 percent to 47 percent advantage, and people began putting their arms around each other.

“Isn’t that what politics is all about,” Kahn said later. “A real faith in the possibility of what can happen when people get together and believe.”

Walz took the phone from Meredith Salsbery, and the room leaned closer. Gwen Walz stared at the floor. After a brief conversation, Walz hung up and said simply, “It’s over.”

And a room full of dreamers yelled for all the world the hear.

Go read the whole article.

MANKATO FREE PRESS: CAMPAIGN WORKERS SHARE VICTORY

                                           

Liz Mcloone (left to right), Jackie Bateman, Meredith Salsbery and Leah Solo graduated from Mankato high schools, went off to college and came back to work on Walz’s upstart campaign against incumbent U.S. Rep. Gil Gutknecht.
Matt Gorrie / The Free Press

The Free Press focused on four young campaign staff from Mankato:

At the end, all they had to do was put him on the stage.

They had worked tirelessly to create a sense of passion, optimism and credibility about their candidate and boss, a high school geography teacher from their hometown, a guy that virtually no one else had ever heard of when his race for Congress began.

But early in the morning of Nov. 8, that thing they’d struggled to create was happening spontaneously. They didn’t have to say a word.

Hundreds of people — gray-haired grandparents, blue-collar union guys, crazed high school kids, idealistic young adults and liberal professionals — were jammed, shoulder to shoulder and spilling out the doors into the hallway. They were, more or less, out of their minds when Tim Walz took the stage in the ballroom of the Mankato Holiday Inn.

Before Walz was finished making his victory speech, he was surrounded on the stage by the people who’d been crucial in painstakingly creating the momentum that eventually resulted in that surreal scene on election night.

“By the way,” Walz said, looking around at his key campaign staff, “the average age is about 23 up here.”

The Mankatoans

Four of the seven people he called to the stage were women in their 20s who had graduated from Mankato high schools, went off to college and came back to work on Walz’s upstart campaign to knock off six-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Gil Gutknecht. The four — Leah Solo, Meredith Salsbery, Jackie Bateman and Liz Mcloone — were integral to the campaign, particularly Solo and Salsbery, who were there at the start. . . .

A good read about a fun bunch.

PIONEER PRESS: "THE WALZ PHENOMENON"
The ability of a fresh face to come from nowhere and win in Minnesota politics has been given a name: the "Tim Walz phenomenon." In a Pioneer Press article about possible candidates to challenge Senator Norm Coleman we find the following (fortunately, Walz isn't mentioned as a candidate; it's important that he continue to serve the people of the First):

Political black belts say Franken and Rybak would have company; that Klobuchar's cakewalk over Republican Mark Kennedy will have Democrats quickly starting to raise money toward a move to the nation's Capitol.

Their numbers likely will include completely fresh faces, given the Tim Walz phenomenon. Walz, a Mankato teacher and military veteran, defeated incumbent 1st District U.S. Rep. Gil Gutknecht as part of the Democratic tsunami.

"Walz's victory was phenomenal in a conservative area, and against a six-term incumbent who usually would win by 20 points,'' Jacobs said. "The idea of party elders picking the nominee is going by the wayside. Republicans are now asking if Mark Kennedy was the best candidate to run this year.''

Mirror images of Walz will begin making themselves visible soon, predicted Vance Opperman, a Democratic activist and part-owner of the Minnesota Wild.

"One of the serious Senate candidates will be someone we haven't thought of today, perhaps from outstate,'' Opperman said.

We were surprised to see Opperman quoted in a discussion of Walz as a model, since his name doesn't show up in Walz's contributor lists, near as we can determine from searching FEC records. Perhaps something will turn up in the year-end report, and Opperman will recognize the next Walz upon first glance.

NEW YORK TIMES: WALZ DEFINES HIMSELF
In an article about the populist bearings of the incoming freshman legislators, Tim Walz defines himself:

As they headed to Washington for their orientation, many of the incoming freshmen still spoke like outsiders. Tim Walz, a Minnesota teacher, retired National Guardsman and newly elected House Democrat, described himself as “a farm state Democrat-soldier who’s concerned about the environment and civil liberties.”

He has seen how ugly the partisanship can get in American politics, Mr. Walz said, and is adamant about changing it. “I’m convinced that what we need to do is heal,” he said. “Tuesday was not a Democratic referendum; it was an American referendum. It’s not that the American people are so enamored with the Democratic vision, but what they believed is what we said about cleaning up corruption, having some real open debate. It just seems so broken.”

Washington Post: Gutknecht ignored NRCC summer warnings

We missed this item in Thursday's Washington Post:

On the GOP side, the finger-pointing began soon after the results were clear. GOP officials faulted several lawmakers for blowing their races. For months, the National Republican Congressional Committee warned incumbents that this year's headwinds could endanger them -- even if they had not faced serious races before.

The NRCC went to Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) in the summer with a poll that showed him in real jeopardy in his race against teacher Tim Walz (D). Gutknecht did not adequately heed that warning, falling to Walz in the southern Minnesota 1st District.

So that's what this was all about at Checks and Balances back in August:

This item from the latest Checks & Balances [now behind  C & B's subscription firewall] uses an anonymous source.  Take "Is Gutknecht Preparing to Go Negative?" with a very large grain of salt:

A source with solid ties into Republican circles brought forward this interesting piece of information today.  It seems the internal polling by Congressman Gil Gutknecht (R-MN1) is not all that pleased to see he is trailing Democratic challenger Tim Walz by double digits in his attempt for a 7th term of office.

The advantage Walz has is his personal war record in the Persian Gulf war and Gutknecht's past support of President George W. Bush (R) in the current Iraqi war.  Gutknecht's own characterization of the war as not going well and being worse that people were first led to believe is not doing him any favors.

As much as we'd like to believe this story out on the Bluestem Prairie, it's no substitute for solid polling and sourced copy. 

Here's hoping the Walz team depends more on hard work, smart campaigning, and aggressive fundraising than comforting rumors for the remaining weeks until November.  Help them out here.

And so the Walz team did, with the help of your contributions.

A source with solid ties into Republican circles brought forward this interesting piece of information today.  It seems the internal polling by Congressman Gil Gutknecht (R-MN1) is not all that pleased to see he is trailing Democratic challenger Tim Walz by double digits in his attempt for a 7th term of office.

The advantage Walz has is his personal war record in the Persian Gulf war and Gutknecht's past support of President George W. Bush (R) in the current Iraqi war.  Gutknecht's own characterization of the war as not going well and being worse that people were first led to believe is not doing him any favors.

As much as we'd like to believe this story out on the Bluestem Prairie, it's no substitute for solid polling and sourced copy. 

Here's hoping the Walz team depends more on hard work, smart campaigning, and aggressive fundraising than comforting rumors for the remaining weeks until November.  Help them out here.

Veterans Day edition: More on veteran Tim Walz's win

DFL VETERANS CAUCUS PRAISES WALZ
We just got this in our email box from DFL Veterans Caucus chair Nancy Gertner:

The Veterans Caucus of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party would like to recognize the military service of America's 24.5 million veterans and congratulate Command Sergeant Major (retired) Tim Walz of the Minnesota National Guard on his election to the United States Congress to represent the people of Minnesota's First Congressional District.  Tim is off to Washington for freshman orientation as one of the new members-elect of the 110th Congress.

Tim ran a very spirited campaign with young home-grown talent.  In his 'victory tour' around the district this week, Tim introduced his staff that worked behind the scenes to produce a campaign victory.  An instructor at Mankato West High School, Tim hired several former students for his campaign.  West grad Leah Solo was the first campaign staffer and remained with the campaign for the duration.  West grad Meredith Salsbery served as communications director and arranged media coverage including several national outlets like the Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio.  Finance Director Jackie Bateman raised over 1.1 Million, and scheduler Liz Mcloone coordinated Tim's visits throughout the district with 22 Minnesota counties in between South Dakota and Wisconsin.  Rochester John Marshall grads Chris Schmitter and Craig McDonnell served as field directors, joining the campaign after their 2006 graduations from Georgetown and University of Wisconsin, Madison.

A gracious winner, Tim Walz acknowledges that 'we' won this election, and the DFL Veterans Caucus is proud to have been a small part of his campaign.

Tim Walz is one of five of the 'Fighting Dems" to be elected from the group of about 40 military veterans that went to Washington this winter to kick off their campaigns with former Georgia Senator Max Cleland.  Tim and his fellow veterans of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps helped the Democrats to win the majority of seats in the House and Senate in the 2006 election.  See their profiles at Fighting Dems.

Additional information is available on Tim's website, www.timwalz.org . . .

News coverage of the Walz and Klobuchar Campaigns, and other Minnesota candidates, includes audio files at Minnesota Public Radio.

Speaker Pelosi blogs (yes, really) at The Hill's Congress blog about how proud she is of her new Democratic veterans joining her in Washington DC.  DNC Chair Howard Dean mentioned Walz in his Veterans' Day Address:

This Veterans Day comes at the end of an historic election season. The American people sent a clear message for a new direction by electing strong Democratic veterans like Jim Webb in Virginia, Tim Walz in Minnesota, and Admiral Joe Sestak, Patrick Murphy and Chris Carney in Pennsylvania.

COMING SUNDAY IN THE WINONA DAILY NEWS
While the Twin Cities newspapers and Minnesota Public Radio were still asking political science profs about Gil Gutknecht's perfect hair in early October, local dailies in the Fighting First were hip to the great story developing in their backyards. The Winona Daily News should have a great feature tomorrow:

Coming Sunday: Mr. Walz goes to Washington
Tim Walz beat six-term incumbent Congressman Gil Gutknecht in Tuesday’s election. Daily News photographer James A. Bowey documented the frantic final 72 hours of the Mankato geography teacher’s unlikely quest that began two years ago when officials tried to keep him out of a speech by President Bush.

We met James Bowey in Rochester a week ago when we went down to liveblog volunteer efforts in Olmsted County. We were impressed: he looked and talked like the Journalist from Central Casting. This article should be a great read.

One of the political scientists consulted made his confession in Thursday's Mankato Free Press:

Joe Kunkel was a late-comer to the group that thought Tim Walz had a strong chance to beat Gil Gutknecht.

A political science professor at Minnesota State University, Kunkel said the professor in him maintained that the congressional election system is broken, that incumbents are virtually unbeatable, that an average person can’t win a federal race in today’s political reality.

“It was only a third-tier race, I thought,” Kunkel said. “... About two weeks ago, I became a believer.”

And the hair, Joe.  Don't forget how impressed you and Minnesota Public Radio were by Gutknecht's smooth personality and hair.  Certain radio hosts also liked to talk about hair, too.

WALZ VICTORY LAP NEWS
The Post Bulletin takes a look at Walz's post-election tour through the district in Walz surfs into Rochester during victory lap:

Rep.-elect Tim Walz made his first trip to Rochester after his stunning upset victory over six-term GOP Rep. Gil Gutknecht, telling a Rochester crowd that they had created the wave that had carried him to victory.  

"You created the wave. I said our job was to stay on the surfboard through the whole thing," the newly elected DFL congressman said.

Walz, 42, bounded across the Peace Plaza in downtown Rochester to greet an estimated 100 supporters gathered outside the Galleria Mall. Wading into the crowd, Walz turned from one supporter to another, telling each, "We did it. We did it."

Dressed in jeans and blue sweatshirt, the Mankato high school teacher and retired National Guardsman spoke like a coach who had gathered his players together for a half-time pep talk. He said the victory and its implications had begun to dawn on him the other night when people began talking to him differently. "I said, 'quit it. You're creeping me out.'"

Turning his attention to events in Washington, Walz said the impact of the mid-term elections already was being felt, noting the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld two days ago.

"The reality of what happened with Donald Rumsfeld, though, is a very good sign. President Bush realizes that the world and America here have shifted. It is a different world today," Walz said. . . .

Mrs. Evil Bobby taped the visit and there's a YouTube video clip here and longer version here.

The Daily Globe noted Walz's intention to open an office in Worthington:

U.S. Rep.-elect Tim Walz breezed through southwest Minnesota Friday on a “victory tour,” making area stops in Windom, Worthington and Luverne.

During Walz’s Worthington stop at the Pizza Ranch, the Democrat who unseated six-term Republican Gil Gutknecht said he planned to make Worthington a focal point of the 1st District.

“We’re planning on a satellite office in Worthington,” said Walz, a retired National Guard command sergeant major and a Mankato West geography teacher. “This at the heart of our ag base, and this is a growing area. It’s an incredibly diverse city with great energy and one that’s setting the tone … in America.”

There's a Swift hog slaughtering facility in Worthington which draws workers to the area.  The diversity of the new work force is reflected in the public schools, where children speaks dozens of first languages other than English. Gutknecht campaigned on an anti-immigration message, and Tim Walz won Nobles County.

In conservative Brown County, which Gutknecht won, Walz thanked the voters, according to the New Ulm Journal:

Tim Walz, Mankato high school teacher turned congressman-elect as of Tuesday, brought his “Thank You” tour of the western half of the First Congressional District to New Ulm Friday morning.

The retired National Guard command sergeant major, a veteran who felt President Bush’s handling of the Iraq war wasn’t right, carried the Democratic banner into battle and defeated Republican Congressman Gil Gutknecht in a campaign that drew a lot of national attention and even more National Democratic Party campaign dollars.

“They [national press] had been writing about that for a week. This was a bellwether district. The common-sense, pragmatic people of southern Minnesota are ones you should look to on what they’re going to do so I’m honored to be your representative there,” Walz told a gathering of about 60 in the Grand Hotel.

“We won, and for that I’m incredibly proud. So, it was a great day the other night. Electoral politics still works in America. This is still the best democracy in the world. It doesn’t matter what you were up against. The people here in this country decided they wanted to see a change, and each and every one of you did everything possible to make that change. It wasn’t for yourselves; it was for those future generations.”

Walz also took some time to visit the high school were he taught, the Strib reports:

He took a break Wednesday afternoon from constant news media interviews to visit Mankato West High School, where he has long been a geography teacher and once coached the football team to the state championship.

"If anyone was going to make it happen, Tim would," said Scott Urban, who has taught government and history in the classroom next to Walz for nine years. "He's the real deal."

Walz was greeted like a rock star by a room crammed with West students, many of whom had volunteered for his campaign. "Thank you guys -- we did it," he told them. "You did it for me in all those parades. When it was 102 [degrees], you were the only ones I could get to do it for me."

Reminded he was due for an interview on CNN, he glanced at his torn jeans and University of Minnesota T-shirt. "I guess I'm going to have to change clothes," he said. "They're all doing that Mr. Smith goes to Washington thing with me. They think it's cute, I guess. But that's OK."

MARSHALL INDEPENDENT: GWEN WALZ'S ROOTS IN LUVERNE
We didn't have the opportunity to meet Gwen Whipple Walz until Election Day, when we ran into her by happenstance at the doorknock staging area in Mankato.  When we introduced ourselves, we discovered that she was a BSP reader. 

We were flattered, since her intellect, strong will, and graciousness quickly emerged, bringing to mind a slightly zaftig Sheila Wellstone. The Marshall Independent looks at the local girl who has gone on to be a teacher, activist, and now wife of a United States Representative:

Life for Ivanhoe native Gwen Walz has been changing over the last 22 months, but after Election Day, another change is in store.

Gwen Walz, wife of Tim Walz of Mankato who was elected this week in Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, said the last two years have been an amazing ride.

Tim Walz, the endorsed Democrat candidate, defeated incumbent U.S. Rep. Gil Gutknecht, R-Rochester.

“We’ve been campaigning for about 22 months for Tim’s seat,” said Gwen Walz. “The closer the election got, the more people got interested and engaged in the process. It almost became easier the closer the election got because people were more interested in the results.”

Gwen Walz, the daughter of Minneota boys basketball coach Val Whipple, said she has had a lot of contact with her father throughout the campaign. Val and his wife, Linn, live in Ivanhoe.

“I’ve talked to my dad at least once every day. He was helpful, especially on the western side of the state,” said Gwen Walz. “He contacted people he knew and he carried signs for us. He is an excellent campaigner.

“We think he was really important in helping us do so well on the western part of the state, which Democrats haven’t traditionally done,” she added.

Whipple said he took the opportunity to let people know about what he felt his son-in-law could do for the district.

“I just called people I knew and traveled down into the Pipestone and Luverne area, contact people I know and tell them I think my son-in-law is a wonderful candidate and asked them to consider voting for him,” said Whipple.

Following the election, Whipple said he was proud to see his son-in-law win.

“I just think it’s extremely exciting and gratifying to see such a talented young man be successful,” said Whipple.

According to Gwen Walz, Whipple has played a large part in both her life and her husband Tim’s.

“Tim’s father died when he was young, right as he was graduating from high school,” said Gwen Walz.

“He’s the only grandpa and he’s the father figure,” she added. “Talking to him and trying to make decisions about even how we’re going to manage next week has been really great.”

While running for public office might not have been something Tim Walz has planned for a long time, Whipple said he wasn’t surprised when it was announced he was running.

“I wasn’t all that surprised,” said Whipple. “I didn’t expect it but I wasn’t surprised. He likes to meet challenges and my daughter is the same way. She assists him a great deal and they work together as a team.”

Gwen Walz’s mom, Linn, said she was excited to see her son-in-law win Tuesday.

“Tim is a really remarkable guy,” said Linn Whipple. “He can meet anybody and make them feel like they’ve known each other forever.”

Along with her parents, Gwen Walz said, the whole family has been involved in campaigning for her husbands bid for election.

Support for the Walz campaign came from a number of other sources, including a friend the Walz family got to know well in 2004.

During the 2004 election, Tim and Gwen Walz played host to Elizabeth Edwards, wife of vice presidential hopeful John Edwards.

Gwen Walz traveled with Elizabeth Edwards during part of that campaign.

While Elizabeth Edwards wasn’t able to come out and campaign for Tim Walz, Gwen Walz said her support was still there.

“We’ve been playing telephone tag but I have a great message from her,” said Gwen Walz.

Elizabeth Edwards recently published a book about her fight with breast cancer. During a recent trip to Minnesota to promote the book, Elizabeth Edwards invited Gwen Walz to attend a special lunch.

Gwen Walz said the timing just didn’t work — it was on the due-date of her new-born son Gus.

While the two were not able to touch base then, Gwen Walz said Elizabeth Edwards made a point to call and congratulate Tim Walz on election night.

“She called immediately after the election and she told us she was proud to know us which is amazing and left all kinds of good comments,” said Gwen Walz.

“(Elizabeth and I are) both looking forward to some time where we can both talk and can see each other because she has accomplished her whole journey through breast cancer,” she said.

Now that the election is over, Gwen Walz said the phone continues to ring and appointments continue to come up.

With congressional orientation scheduled for next week, Gwen Walz said they are getting ready for a trip to Washington this weekend.

“For me, it’s trying to figure out if we can get everything dry cleaned in time and packed,” said Gwen Walz. “We have a daughter who is in kindergarten so we’re trying to coordinate with my parents who are going to come and stay with her while I’m gone.”

With the excitement and new schedule, Gwen Walz said she has even asked her parents to consider moving to Mankato to be closer to her.

“I’ve asked them if they would consider moving here (to Mankato),” said Gwen Walz. “But I don’t think they’re ready to leave southwest Minnesota.”

CYBERINDEE: WINONA DFL CHIEF SPEAKS
Rob Thoreson reports for Winona's indie college online paper:

WINONA, Minn., Nov 8, 2006 -- As the hustle and bustle of the election campaigns faded, Democrats around Winona were all smiles at the victories of Amy Klochubar, Gene Pelowski, Sharon Ropes and Tim Walz. "The DFL team and the WSU College Democrats were all wonderful people to work with during these campaigns." said county Democratic chair Anne Morse. "I feel we accomplished a lot." Morse said that Democratic candidates, who will move into control of Congress, benefited from public dissatisfaction with the Iraq war and from veterans issues. "We have worked very hard for our veterans and are now coming up on our third year of the veterans project in which we help Iraq war veterans at the Minneapolis Veterans Hospital," she said in a post-election interview. "We had small numbers the first year, but over the past two years the project has grown so much, and it makes all of us feel good, like we're accomplishing something positive."

What about observations that Americans weren't necessarily voting Democratic but rather just not voting Republican? "There is a measure of truth to that and people rejecting the status quo," Morse said, "but in reality we had great candidates like Tim Walz and Amy Klochubar, and I'm convinced that people went out of their way to vote for these candidates." What next? "We can't go into hibernation," Morse said. "We need to keep going."

ROCHESTER POST-BULLETIN: TIM PENNY SPEAKS

We had observed before the election that former Congressman Tim Penny would speak his piece about the Walz-Gutknecht contest in his own independent fashion.  Now that Walz has won, Penny compares and contrasts their campaigns in the First via the Rochester paper.  It looks like people in the First just like guys named Tim:

By Mike Dougherty

The Post-Bulletin 

It was 24 years ago that another Democrat named Tim broke the electoral back of a long-term Republican incumbent.

In fact, Tim Penny, the Democrat who won the 1st District in 1982, was the only Democrat to win in the 1st District, in the last century.

Along with the name, Penny sees a few similarities in the type of campaign he ran in 1982 and the type of campaign Mankato school teacher Tim Walz ran this year to defeat Republican six-term U.S. Rep. Gil Gutknecht of Rochester.

"I thought Tim Walz was credible and viable when I met him," Penny said. "I remember our conversations from early and late spring when he was telling me what Washington was telling him. In the end, he ran his own campaign, which was about him, not Washington. And then they came to him on his own terms in the fall when he needed some assistance to beat back the tons of money that poured in here."

Penny said the key in his race in 1982 was to start early and build a base of support and keep building its layers.

"And then about six months ago he had pretty much convinced Democrats they could win, and I don't think they had felt that way for about eight years," Penny said. "He did the grunt work of getting out in the district, east to west and energizing supporters."

[snip]

Penny notes that the district is different geographically and some of the political tastes have changed.

Rochester was still one of the keys. In Penny's time, he managed to carry several precincts and stayed close in others when he beat Tom Hagedorn, a Republican who served four terms and found himself in the 1st District after redistricting.

"But back then, Rochester was much more monolithic Republican, so you just had to stay close there," Penny said. "Now there are more potential voters who aren't Republicans and that creates some new dynamics for candidates."

This time, Gutknecht didn't win any of Rochester's six voting wards.

"I sensed about six months ago that Rochester was available to Tim, that the medical and business community was disappointed with Gil," Penny said. "Tim presented those opinion leaders with a reasonable, thoughtful candidate."

NETROOTS UPDATE

We've gotten several emails about the joint appearance on Almanac of Minnesota's new representative Tim Walz and Michele Bachmann. Vox Verax reports here, and the contrast is too much for the blog's usual measured civility.

We confess to rarely watching Almanac because its concentrated tincture of conventional wisdom merely makes us sneeze.

There are more reflections on the race over at Vox Verax; we found this post, "Is Jerry McNerney the Tim Walz of California?" to be interesting in its look at environmentalists' support for winning challengers. 

We would like to draw readers' attention to Say No to Pombo, another local blog in the spirit of BSP.  A little netroots bragging here: Bet on the Netroots.  Matt Stoller at MyDD looks at the coalition that elected Walz and others in Fight for More People-Power, Not Better Parking Spots.

Clarification:  We've gotten a fair number of emails about our plans to cut back on our posting here at BSP and to broaden our subject matter.  By "cutting back", we mean to once or twice a day, rather than the many multiple posts the election cycle dictated. 

As for content, it's our blog.

The future of Bluestem Prairie

We're most likely going to keep BSP going, but we're going to be posting less frequently now that the election is over, and we'll also reconsider our hyper-narrow focus on the Fighting First.  While we'll still write about rural Minnesota politics, we'll probably spend some time exploring other areas of interest.

Stay tuned.

Immigration as an issue in the Fighting First

Gil Gutknecht's campaign attacking Tim Walz on immigration flooded local television; we sometimes saw this ad a dozen times a night on Mankato's KEYC-TV.  It was ugly stuff that distorted Walz's positions on immigration.

And the focus was no fluke: Representative Gutknecht had chosen to associate with local immigration "reform" groups associated with the Minutemen.  He shopped Colorado xenophobe Rep. Tom Tancredo around the district at town meetings. Gutknecht had hitched his wagon to this star issue--so much that going into the summer,  Gutknecht was fond of saying that people in the First cared more about immigration than the Iraq War.

Not so much,  as it turns out. Aaron Blake at the Hill takes a look at what happened to candidates who focused on this issue in House GOP’s immigration strategy no ‘magic bullet’:  

Earlier this year Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) argued that illegal immigration would play a bigger role in the election than the war in Iraq. People know what they want to do about illegal immigration, he reasoned, but most Americans find the war more confounding without a clear strategy in mind to turn it around.

But Tuesday Gutknecht lost his reelection bid, and that loss, as well as those of many other so-called border-enforcement-first Republicans around the country, punctuated their party’s failed election strategy, casting doubt on their handling of what was supposed to be a winning campaign issue and demonstrating that issues like Iraq and President Bush’s low popularity in the polls trumped the polarizing illegal immigration issue even at the southern border.

The examples are most notable in Arizona and Colorado, but also showed up in places such as Indiana and Minnesota.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who has supported a comprehensive approach to illegal immigration that includes a guest-worker program, said last week before the election that Republican leaders had mistakenly coalesced behind the enforcement-first strategy as a cure-all to the election challenges they faced.

After the Memorial Day recess, Flake said Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) came back arguing in favor of drawing an election line in the sand at the border. House Republicans even set up a communications “war room” to do a public-relations blitz on the issue and held field hearings around the country over the August recess, standing defiant against the Senate-passed comprehensive bill.

Republicans thought immigration was going to be “our magic carpet that we’re going to ride to reelection,” Flake said, arguing that that strategy failed to address the “elephant in the room” — what to do about the millions of illegal immigrants already in the country.

One need not look far from Flake’s Arizona district to see how House Republicans’ immigration strategy failed.

Minuteman-backed Randy Graf won the Republican primary to succeed retiring Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) in southeastern Arizona by running a one-issue campaign as an illegal immigration hard-liner. Graf started out the general election significantly down in the polls and lost by 12 points to Democrat Gabrielle Giffords in what was supposed to be one of the closest open-seat races.

Likewise, Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) appeared to have impeccable timing when he published a book on immigration enforcement titled “Whatever It Takes” in January. But the once safe Republican soon found himself in a tight race with Democrat Harry Mitchell, and on Tuesday, Mitchell beat Hayworth by five points in the Phoenix suburbs.

In Colorado, Republican Rick O’Donnell emphasized securing the borders first and opposed a guest-worker program while running for retiring Rep. Bob Beauprez’s (R) seat. Similarly to Graf, he fell by double digits and gave Democrats a valuable open-seat takeover.

Other candidates who stressed enforcement-first farther from the southern border faced similar fates, including House Immigration Subcommittee Chairman John Hostettler (R-Ind.) and Gutknecht.

Hostettler lost big to socially conservative Sheriff Brad Ellsworth, while Gutknecht lost to veteran Tim Walz. Gutknecht’s campaign Wednesday declined to comment about his previous predictions about the impact of immigration. . .

BREAKING: Gutknecht concedes

We're in the war room in Mankato's Holiday Inn.  The stafff is cheering--"WE WON NOBLES COUNTY!!"

the Star Tribune has called it, Tim Walz announces.

Gil Gutknecht has just called and conceded,.  The passionate Walz team goes berzerk with joy and exhaustion.

Kerry Greeley, Tim Walz's campaign manager is to my right.  "This was a great team effort," she beams.  "We had the right candidate who connected with the people all across the district. We got enough financial help from people across the district mainly in small contributions of under $25,  and  then finally contributors from across the nation funded our efforts.  Finally, we had the best team of volunteers that it''s been my privilege with whom it's been my privilege to work."

"In the state and across the country, the netroots believed in us before anyone else,"  she says.

Speaking of his team, Representative Tim Walz said, "They did everything right, except clean the office."

Walz campaign manager: "Delighted"

Sorry for not posting--we're one of the few computers in the Mankato Holiday Inn that's taking in the feed from  various sources, and we're swamped with people asking about this race and others.  No information is coming from the campaign war room other than a very general optimism.

Other bloggers are  getting inside information from the  DFL and calling this race.  We are in  Mankato, waiting,

On the early results: scattered precincts and townships

The precincts and townships reporting are scattered across the district, and none are in those urban centers where the Democratic GOTV efforts overperformed.

We've heard from field organizers from Winona and Rochester that it will be a while before these areas come in--this is also the case in Blue Earth County and other areas.

Walz's campaign manager predicts that it will look bad for a while, then improve, with Tim pulling it out by the end of the evening.  Take your shoes off and set a spell.

In those few DFL areas reporting, Walz is doing well. In Fillmore County, for example, where Democratic Performance Index (DPI) is 52, with  25 percent reporting, Walz is up 57% to 43%.

Washington Post The Fix:What to watch

The Washington Post's The Fix has this to say as  we watch the live blues band tune up:

Minnesota's 1st District: When we met teacher Tim Walz (D) earlier this year we were impressed with his everyman pitch but saw him as a longshot to beat Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R). No longer. Walz and Gutknecht are tied in private polling and Republicans are worried that he may not come back to Congress next January. This was a seat on no one's radar screen at the start of the cycle and the type of seat Democrats will win if they are headed toward gains nationally of 25 or more.