Though no longer the Senate’s outspoken conservative populist, Dick Day has hardly gone silent.

In Senate District 24, which includes the southern Minnesota regional centers of Owatonna and Faribault, one candidate is warning about the harmful effects of state spending cuts while the other is throwing cold water on Gov. Mark Dayton’s desired income tax increase on the wealthiest earners.

The catalyst for a landmark gambling deal cut between horseracing track Canterbury Park and the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux tribe was a minor bill that didn’t get a single hearing during the 2012 legislative session.

The perennial bill to install slots in the state’s two racetracks was yanked from its first hearing in the Senate Education Committee amid fear that the committee’s conservative members would kill it early in the session.

Indian tribes have been a powerful force in Minnesota politics for nearly two decades, bankrolling major political party groups with hundreds of thousands of dollars for their campaigns. In 2011 they spread their money almost evenly between DFLers and Republicans.

Dick Day was hired to lobby for the Running Aces track about a month ago, spokesman John Derus said. Day left his job as the lead lobbyist for RacinoNow, a Canterbury Park venture, this summer.

It was just a 176-word campaign email, but Sen. Mike Parry hit all the right notes: attacking Gov. Mark Dayton’s child care unionization order; lambasting labor; providing links to news coverage; and taking aim at the next opponent on his political horizon, DFL U.S. Rep. Tim Walz, whose congressional seat Parry hopes to claim in 2012.

Jeff Hilger describes himself as first and foremost a horse guy. He owns a sprawling farm in Stillwater where he breeds thoroughbreds. He has also worked in the corporate world. One thing Hilger’s a bit low on is political experience.

The group has hired a new lead lobbyist and will be called the Racino Now/Equine Development Coalition, as they try to highlight racino's benefits to the horse and agriculture industry over gambling in the 2012 session.

A lot of things are changing for Dick Day. The former Senate Republican minority leader made a legislative career out of supporting slot machines at racetracks — better known as racino — during his 19 years in the chamber.