Sarvi announces bid for Congress, faces big hurdles

Iraq vet Steve Sarvi made official his bid to unseat three-term incumbent John Kline in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District.

Sarvi has generated good reviews so far from DFL activists who see him as a strong challenger to Kline, who has not faced stiff competition since defeating Bill Luther after the 2002 redistricting combined some of the most conservative areas south of the Twin Cities into one district.  But Sarvi nevertheless faces tough challenges, both from Kline and from the competition for dollars among Democrats running across Minnesota this year.

In a press release accompanying his announcement, Sarvi said, “I will not just win this election; I will do from day one what I have always done: serve my country and my community, bringing neighbors together to build an America and a Minnesota that is stronger, safer, and better able to prosper in the future.”

Plenty of ink and electrons have been spilled about the money being raised by DFLers like Al Franken, Tim Walz, Terri Bonoff and Ashwin Madia in their assorted federal races.  But Sarvi’s fund raising lags behind — in its year-end FEC report, Sarvi’s campaign indicated that he raised about $53,000 in 2007, well short of the totals being raised in other races and of the amount generally considered necessary to make a congressional race competitive.

I asked Sarvi’s communications director, Bridget Cusick, about the future of Sarvi’s fund-raising effort and how it related to their campaign plan.  She said the campaign would be engaging in plenty of grass-roots fund raising, including some coming up this week.

Money isn’t everything in political campaigns.  Sarvi has a national and local Democratic trend at his back, as well as a base of motivated volunteers who almost universally have a hard spot in their collective heart for John Kline.  But Kline is not known for playing nice on the campaign trail, and standing up to negative campaign tactics is a lot easier when you can afford the paid media and field operations necessary to do so.