When Jeremy Miller walked in the 2010 La Crescent Applefest Parade, his interactions with voters led to a lot of questions. “Who are you?” they asked. And: “You’re running for what?” And: “Are you even old enough?”

Two years ago, the contest for an open St. Cloud-area House seat was the closest in the state. On Election Day the results showed that Republican King Banaian eked out a 10-vote victory over DFLer Carol Lewis. Following an automatic recount, that margin stretched to 13 votes out of nearly 11,000 cast.

Matt Schmit has filed to run in Red Wing's Senate District 28. Jack Krage will run in Winona's Senate District 31.

Jack Krage, who has worked as a real estate agent for Coldwell Banker for more than 25 years, announced his run for the southwestern Senate district on Wednesday.

On Wednesday evening roughly 40 people gathered in the strip mall offices of the Winona Education Association to hear from freshman GOP Sen. Jeremy Miller. The event was organized by the Southeast Minnesota Area Labor Council, and most of the people present were union members.

For former DFL Sen. Jim Carlson, it was a matter of a little reflection and time to “lick my wounds” before he knew he was ready to run again for the state Senate. Carlson, who served one term in the chamber, was ousted last fall by Republican newcomer Ted Daley as part of a massive GOP wave that saw the party take control of both the House and Senate for the first time in nearly four decades.

The message from Republican legislative challengers on last summer's campaign trail was clear: Farmers are suffering from state lawmakers' recent changes to the Green Acres farmland preservation program.

As Charley Shaw writes this week, the new Republican majority in the Minnesota Senate appears dedicated to projecting a considerably more conservative face when Session 2011 convenes in seven weeks.

Back in the 1990s, in another political lifetime, political operatives like Mark Penn and Karl Rove made names for themselves by exploiting the advantages of closely defined messages to specific groups of voters via direct mail.

As Minnesota’s Republican Party was giddily tweeting the news that the party had fielded candidates for all 201 seats in the state Legislature for the first time in 30 years, the Independence Party of Minnesota was quietly celebrating its own milestone: 16 candidates for the Legislature in 2010, seven in Senate districts and nine in House districts.