In Minnesota, a nearly clean sweep

A pretty good night at Midtopia's campaign headquarters. All of my choices (see sidebar) won except for the governor's race, where Hutchinson split the ticket and let Pawlenty squeak through to re-election.

Tim Walz beating Gil Gutknecht was an intriguing surprise. I didn't mind Gutknecht so much, other than his longstanding support for Bush's Iraq policy. Count him a victim of the national mood.

And the 6th District is sending a nutjob to Congress. That's their right, and it's not like Wetterling was the strongest candidate in the world. But one usually hopes that sanity prevails over looniness. Oh, well; it's only for two years. Maybe Mark Kennedy will reclaim his seat in 2008, or Elwyn Tinklenberg will finally get his chance. Heck, maybe Bachmann will prove to be a reasonable Rep.... sure, and maybe pigs will fly out of my nose.

My overall approach worked, though. Pawlenty keeps his office, but every other statewide office went Democrat, and the Dems took control of the state House while holding on to the state Senate. So Pawlenty will have to do a lot of dealing if he wants to get anything done.

Congratulations to Klobuchar, Ramstad, Bonoff and Benson.

Minnesota, politics, midtopia