In one of the David beats Goliath stories of this election cycle, Chip Cravaack narrowly beat 18 term incumbent James Oberstar last night in the eighth Congressional Distirct of Minnesota, a district that had been seen as unassailably Democrat for decades now.  Indeed, only once had Oberstar ever won by less than 60% of the vote. Two factors were at play here.  First, Oberstar had outstayed his welcome. Indeed, this race first came to my attention when Wisconsin's 22 term incumbent David Obey surprised everyone last Spring by deciding not to run for reelection in the district adjacent to Oberstar's.  The districts are demographically quite similar -- a mixture of small cities with unionized industry, agriculture, forestry and tourism, socially conservative but with a strong populist streak. Obey's  and Oberstar's voting records were close to identical, too.  I concluded that if Obey was feeling...(Read Full Post)