Politics In Minnesota's Charley Shaw has his latest Legislative race update posted and it seems he has noticed something rather nefarious in this years class of candidates....

Traditionally, there have been a number of more or less well-worn paths to the Minnesota Legislature. They include backgrounds in local government, business, and partisan political activism. Each, in its own way, has tended to breed familiarity with the levers of government and how they operate.

That’s still true of many in the current batch of St. Paul aspirants. But the nationwide backlash against economic stimulus measures and the national debt has spawned a new type of candidate in 2010. In a number of House and Senate districts, political newcomers enamored with the Tea Party movement are running for office mainly because they object to the policies of President Barack Obama and his fellow travelers at the state and local level.

OH NO - not the Tea "baggers".....can you imagine the kind of freaks are they running?

Gretchen Hoffman, who has had a long career as a nurse but has never been active in public service or party politics before organizing some Tea Party gatherings this year, is running an energetic campaign to win the Senate seat in District 10 in Otter Tail and Wadena counties. She hopes to oust incumbent Sen. Dan Skogen, DFL-Hewitt.

A nurse?  But aren't they all Democrats? They should be!  But what could have driven Ms. Hoffman to run?

“What got me involved was watching our government grow exponentially,” said Hoffman. “It’s really difficult in the private sector with as much government that’s interfering.”

OK well so Ms. Hoffman isn't a freak - the next one is right?

In District 11B, where Agriculture Policy Chairwoman Mary Ellen Otremba, DFL-Long Prairie, is retiring, Republican candidate Mary Franson, an AT&T credit representative, is a Tea Party activist. Her website says she “feels government has grown out of control and opposes the bailouts, buyouts and handouts to powerful special interests.”

Snark aside, if Charley Shaw had bothered to get to know these candidates he could have gone a long way into telling the real story here.  The Tea Party - like them or not - is doing something that has been needed for a long time.  It is shaking politics to it's core.  No longer a politicians coming from the "traditional well worn paths" and that is a good thing.  The Founding Fathers envisioned the Legislatures to be occupied by citizen legislators - not career politicians!  People who have "day jobs" and responsibilities outside of the legislature and a legislature that only met for a couple of months a year - not all year around like we have today!

If Tea Party sympathizers get elected in significant numbers, it would likely change the political calculus for many entrenched interests on both sides of the political aisle. On issues that are deeply embedded in state law and fiscal policy, like LGA and the defined benefit pension plans, lobbyists could encounter intense resistance to their efforts to advocate for existing programs.

Again this is not a bad thing.  We need people in the legislature who are not tied to the status quo - people who are open to creative thinking in order to solve the problems facing the state and the country.  Status quo thinking is what has gotten us into the budget predicament that we are in today.

The progressive movement, for better or for worse, shook up the Democrat Party back in the early 1980's.  It's past time for the GOP to get shaken up.  Let's hope that the Tea Party does a it's job well.  It's needed.