The weather cooperated, so state Rep. Paul Thissen of Mpls assembled a few dozen friends, relatives and neighbors in his South Mpls backyard this morning and officially announced as a candidate for the DFL endorsement  for governor.

It was a non-event newswise. Thissen has long filed his legal campaign committee papers and been paying a campaign manager, and he hasn't equivocated when asked whether he was in the race. He is. So this was the pure media event.

Thissen had kind of a cool prop in the backyard, a workbench that his great-grandfather made with his own hands about 100 years ago on the farm outside of Watson, MN (Chippewa County, population 209 as of the 2000 census, nearest city you've heard of: Montevideo). The workbench wasn't a thing of the beauty, but it was sturdy and the vice, made entirely of wood, still works. Thissen is using it as a metaphor for things that last for generations. His great-grandfather "could've slapped something together," Thissen said, but he put in the time and efffort to "build something that would last," which is "a lesson that our current state leadership hasn't taken seriously."

Thissen portrayed Pawlenty-ism as a philosophy that "just says 'no'" to everything and tells Minnesotans "that we're all better off being left alone to fend ourselves." Thissen says he wants to be a governor who says "yes" to the great promise of Minnesota, and that continues to "think big and dream big for our state."

The audience, which as I mentioned consisted of friends, relatives and neighbors of the candidate, liked this message very much. If you happen to see it on the news tonight, you'll see them clapping behind Thissen while he looks directly into the cameras and asks for "your support," even though the only people physically present whose support Thissen was soliciting were about five cameramen and six reporters, none of whom are allowed by their job description to clap nor promise Thissen their support.

Thissen is smart, young, handsome, articulate and Minnesotan as all get-out. In this very large field of Dem guv candidates, he may have the lowest name recognition of all and is certainly among the dark-horse candidates. But, as I try to remind myself daily, there is no meaningful scorecard in a race for endorsement that will last another year and will probably be decided based on the second- and third-choices of a group of delegates who haven't even been selected.