At the end of yesterday’s Michele Obama rally in St. Paul, I ran into 2nd Congressional District challenger Steve Sarvi. When I asked the Democrat how that afternoon’s debate with Rep. John Kline had gone, his response was surprisingly noncommittal. He practically shrugged his shoulders. Having just watched the debate via The Uptake, I can understand why the candidate couldn’t muster any self-serving spin. Let’s put it kindly in cliched sports terms: The challenger did not deliver a game-changing performance.

Sarvi is seeking to oust three-term Rep. John Kline in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District. The incumbent has won each of his last two re-election contests by a whopping 16-percent margin and the district rates a +3 for the Republicans in the Cook Partisan Voting Index. So at first glance it should be a cakewalk for Kline.

But there are numerous signs that he could be vulnerable. Two years ago, Amy Klobuchar won the 2nd by a comfortable 10-point margin in the U.S. Senate race. And DFL’ers now control a majority (17 to 16) of state legislative seats in the district, having picked up 11 posts in just the last two election cycles. When you consider that Kline’s last two opponents (Coleen Rowley and Teresa Daly) were widely derided for running lackluster campaigns, that Kline has built the most conservative voting record in the Minnesota delegation, and that the electoral climate has left the letters GOP colored scarlet, it would seem that Sarvi might have a chance.

There are few signs, however, that his campaign has generated much enthusiasm. As of August, he’d raised just $330,000. Elwyn Tinklenberg, a similarly situated Democratic challenger, by contrast, has brought in just over $1 million. The Sarvi campaign’s fundraising struggles have even drawn ridicule from beltway pundit Stuart Rothenberg.

So yesterday’s debate at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska — the first of four encounters between Kline and Sarvi — was an ideal opportunity for the challenger to prove himself a formidable opponent. Opportunity missed.

Kline is a cranky, by-the-book conservative who treats his constituents with barely concealed disdain. But he’s also got a gruff, plain-spoken charisma that can seem enticing to voters fed up with silver-tongued Washington pols. “Look, folks, we’re in troubled times,” he said at the beginning of the debate yesterday. “We are facing historic challenges. We’re a nation at war. We’re in the midst of an energy crisis. And we have American and world financial markets in turmoil.”

Judging by all the ridicule he heaped on Washington and its culture of cronyism, you’d never guess that Kline was the incumbent. His personal bete noire is earmark spending. The Republican never tires of pointing out that he’s refused to request any earmarks for his district, constituents be damned. Kline even took a thinly veiled potshot at James Oberstar, the veteran Iron Range Democrat who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and is famous for bringing home federal dollars. Kline claimed — preposterously — that Oberstar’s district gets more money for bike trails than the 2nd receives for roads and bridges owing to pork-barrel politics. “It’s not right that because of who you know and how long you’ve been there you get more money,” he said. “That’s a broken system.”

Kline also trotted out the familiar bogeyman of government-run health care. “Same people who brought you Katrina running your health care,” Kline sneered. “I don’t think that’s a direction we want to go.” This is cynicism of the most untoward variety, invoking the horror show of ineptitude displayed by FEMA during Hurricane Katrina in order to avoid fixing the country’s scandalous health-care system.

But these sentiments sound rational and pithy when they go unchallenged. And Sarvi largely failed to articulate a thoughtful critique of Kline’s six-year tenure or an alternative vision to carry the district forward. He lobbed criticisms at the incumbent for his voting record on veterans’ issues, children’s health care and Social Security, but often struggled to clearly delineate those failings.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and Kline’s purportedly dismissive attitude toward it, came up three different times — and I still can’t figure out exactly what point Sarvi was attempting to make. “We have to make sure that if we send them overseas that they’re taken care of when they come home, especially with regards to PTSD,” Sarvi said of the country’s soldiers. “I was concerned about your comments, John, when you were in … You’re in a unique position on the personnel committee, on the Armed Services Subcommittee … We need your leadership there and I think you’ve let us down.”

It wasn’t a Palin-esque performance by any stretch. Sarvi summoned some decent lines.

On Social Security: “If my opponent had had his way, our Social Security money would be invested in the market. I don’t think that would have been a good choice for us and for our future.”

On tax policies: “We have to make sure we lift all boats, not just the yachts.”

On nuclear power: “Everybody wants nuclear, but do you want it in your backyard?”

And on education: “No Child Left Behind, folks, needs to be left behind. We’ve got to stop teaching kids to take tests. We need critical thinkers.”

But there were too few such moments to think that the debate performance will inspire many voters to change their allegiance in the 2nd District race. Sarvi will get three more opportunities to make his case.

Here’s The UpTake’s video of the debate. If you dare.