Between all the interest in the 2010 governor’s race and the health reform debate, these just aren’t the lazy, hazy days of summer in Minnesota.

Eric Ostermeier, a Ph.D. who writes the Smart Politics blog for the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, certainly isn’t frittering his time away. He has published a content analysis of 307 tweets from a potential gubernatorial candidate, state Rep. Laura Brod, R-New Prague.

According to Ostermeier’s thorough examination of her Twitter account, "Brod spent a plurality of her time on Twitter discussing substantive policy issues (as substantive as one can get, that is, in 140 characters or less), with 142 of her 307 tweets falling into this category (46.3 percent)."

You may recall the ethics complaint filed against state Rep. Paul Gardner when he tweeted about state Rep. Tom Emmer, another Republican gubernatorial candidate, and Rep. Mark Buesgens, R-Jordan. I wrote about the troubles in Twitter-land in June.

"But these are isolated examples," Ostermeier writes. "The bigger question is how are politicians choosing to use Twitter over the course of weeks and months? To what extent is Twitter used for overtly political purposes?"

Brod tweets about everything from her kids discovering raspberries in their backyard to taxes, the top topic among her tweets about policy issues. And she didn’t refrain from tweaking politicians, especially those of the Democratic variety, before Gardner got into trouble in May.

"On some occasions (20 tweets, 6.5 percent), Brod also chose to target specific politicians in her tweets. Many of these were jabs at DFL Majority Leader Tony Sertich," Ostermeier reports. Here’s one:

"Sweet.... Sertich is being a Page and handing out amendments.. I wonder if we can have a Page play Sertich! Thanks Tony! (April 27th)"