Ken Peterson, who was Minnesota's labor and industry commissioner during Gov. Rudy Perpich's administration, will return to the same position in Gov.-elect Mark Dayton's administration.

Following an announcement Friday that current DFL Chair Brian Melendez will not seek another term, longtime DFL operative Ken Martin announced he is seeking the post.

It didn't take long after the election night DFL bloodletting for the pot to begin stirring in the liberal blogosphere.

Jon Youngdahl, who served as campaign manager on former attorney general Mike Hatch's 2006 gubernatorial campaign, has been named chief of staff for the Service Employees International Union. Since 2007, Youngdahl has been the labor union's political director.

In many cases, DFLers simply got caught in an undertow in districts that are fundamentally split in their political allegiances; in some, like rural Senate District 16, they handed back control of districts no one had expected them to win in the first place; in others, it appears, they failed to take steps to protect incumbents who faced discernible pockets of Republican opposition.

One theory as to why Emmer failed to catch a GOP wave that swept the nation is that he never recovered from a bruising month of July.

Mark Dayton became the first DFL governor-elect in 24 years under the unlikeliest of circumstances on Tuesday night, beating Republican Tom Emmer by a final margin of fewer than 10,000 votes out of more than 2 million cast. The exceedingly slim margin - less than half of one percent - will trigger an automatic recount.

As returns come in, here are some of the key factors campaign vets will be watching in the governor's race.

At this stage in the governor's race four years ago, Republican Tim Pawlenty, DFLer Mike Hatch and the Independence Party's Peter Hutchinson had collected nearly $5 million in contributions, with the incumbent Pawlenty hauling in about three-fifths of that total.

In the final weeks leading up to the general election, Democratic political operatives and pundits seem haunted by what many refer to as “the ghost of Mike Hatch.” Like this year’s DFL gubernatorial nominee, Mark Dayton, Hatch was leading in nearly every poll in the final month before Election Day 2006, and Democrats across the state were starting to see a clear path to the governor’s office for the first time since Iron Ranger Rudy Perpich won re-election in 1986.