Miles and months from the bright lights of election night parties, you’ll find congressional candidates meeting with small groups, eating French fries, and talking issues, politics, foreign policy and values.

That’s exactly what Iraq veteran Steve Sarvi was doing when I caught up with him Monday night at the American Legion in Farmington.

Sarvi started his listening tour across the 2nd Congressional District this past weekend. The events, designed to introduce the candidate to potential supporters on a personal level, will keep Sarvi busy through the end of the week; he left the Farmington event right on time to head to another in Zumbrota.

Sarvi spent much of Monday’s event discussing his experiences in the military on the ground in Iraq, a theme sure to recur in a race against incumbent Republican John Kline, a retired Marine Lt. Colonel. Sarvi represents a continuation of the trend, beginning in 2006, of military veterans running for Congress as Democrats. In blogosphere circles, they became known as “Fighting Dems,” counting Minnesota first-termer Tim Walz among their members. Sarvi is not alone as a veteran running for the first time in Minnesota, with attorney Ashwin Madia’s recent entry into the 3rd District race.

Sarvi’s low-key manner seemed to strike a positive note with several of Monday’s attendees, who afterward called his approach “exactly what we need” as opposed to what they dislike in the incumbent. The small crowd smiled at Sarvi’s stories and chuckled at his jokes, and an astute listener could tell which pieces, lines and anecdotes will be showing up in a stump speech somewhere down the road.

With no other Democratic opponents on the horizon, Sarvi very well could be the 2nd District DFL’s standard-bearer in 2008.  However, despite his experience in city administration, he’s new to the congressional campaign game, and will need all the practice he can get telling his stories and espousing his values to the voters who will decide his political fate.