10125_183527705049_600480049_4248589_4767292_nUpdated: Something worth fighting for: “a culture that says helping our neighbors in difficult times is a good thing.” That’s the credo of DFLer Jim Meffert, who officially announced Tuesday he will make a run at unseating first-term U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen in Minnesota’s Third District next year.

Meffert sent signals he was ready to run six weeks ago. He jumps in two weeks after forensic psychiatrist Maureen Hackett announced her bid for the seat, while another potential DFL rival to Paulsen, state Sen. Terri Bonoff, remains on the fence though she is leaning toward running.

Update: “I’m not in this race and the door is open,” Bonoff told the Minnesota Independent. “The election is a year from now.” By what date would she need to announce were she going to run for Congress? “No comment.”

After a year in office, Paulsen has an enormous financial advantage over any challenger, with nearly $1 million in his campaign coffers.

Still, outside observers and the Republican Party itself have singled out Minnesota’s Third District as a competitive race in 2010. Democrats have selected the district as worthy of attack ads targeting Paulsen on issues and votes.

Politically speaking, a Meffert-Paulsen matchup would offer classic DFL/GOP contrasts. Paulsen has charted a more conservative course than his predecessor, moderate Republican Jim Ramstad. Meffert, chief executive at the nonprofit Minnesota Optometric Association, pledges to use government to fight for “jobs, stronger schools, health reform, [and] a strong economy.”

But demographically — to use a word the Paulsen campaign wielded against DFL opponent Ashwin Madia last year — Meffert and Paulsen make an intriguingly matched pair. Both are graduates of St. Olaf College, where Paulsen delivered the commencement address last spring. (Meffert is two years younger.) And both are suburban fathers: Paulsen has four children to Meffert’s three.

Meffert put his family status front and center in announcing his candidacy, stating in the second sentence of his news release that he “lives in Edina with his wife Karrin and their three young children” and beginning the last paragraph with this: “Being a husband and father of three has shaped Jim’s volunteer efforts.”