"In the next four years Sarah Palin will make a lot of money, advocate eloquently for conservative causes and, ultimately, not run for president. Governor Palin was thrust onto the national stage prematurely. Who's to say what her future would have been if she'd gained a bit more experience before coming under the microscope of the national media?"

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"Rather than teach students what to think, I teach them how to think. I challenge each student and welcome dissenters. Rather than teach students what to know, I teach them how to find what they need to know."

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"My major goal for the summer really is just to build the executive board to make sure that all of the newer members are well-acquainted with everyone they need to know to be productive throughout the year," Blanks said.

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Former U.S. Rep. Vin Weber, a national Republican strategist, said Pawlenty is "very smart" to be digging into policy matters. "The policy side is where Republicans have been perceived as having been virtually brain dead for the last couple of years," Weber said. If Pawlenty can polish his reputation as a policy innovator, it will enhance his political prospects.

It also could endear him to an important segment of the party, the "Republican intelligentsia," said Larry Jacobs, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance. While Palin appeals to the "populist, anti-intellectual element" of the GOP, Jacobs said, Pawlenty could charm policy wonks at conservative think tanks and the editorial boards of the Wall Street Journal and National Review.

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"The Star Tribune's July 1 test-score analysis should discourage the lumping together of all district or all charter schools. They differ dramatically. The success with low-income students that some charter and district schools have achieved is producing encouraging, constructive conversations."

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"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?"

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But now doubts are surfacing about the federal government's response to the recession. According to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, less than half the country believes the controversial stimulus package will pay off. The poll found that independent voters, in particular, "are developing gnawing fears about government spending" and that "a solid majority -- 58 percent -- said that the president and Congress should focus on keeping the budget deficit down, even if takes longer for the economy to recover."

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There's also the simple fact of more Democratic votes in the Senate - 60 if everyone is there. All Obama needs is seven Republican votes. J. Brian Atwood, a former treaty negotiator and former director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, urges courage. "People get scared away from testing this thing and going to the Hill and making the case," he says, but the votes are within reach.

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"Food is a staple," said former Rep. Tim Penny, now president and CEO of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation. "Everyone needs it. So that is one of the few areas where we are still hanging onto jobs."

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A professor of environmental chemistry in the university's School of Public Health, Swackhamer also holds the Charles M. Denny, Jr. Chair of Science, Technology and Public Policy at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. She is internationally known for her research and leadership on persistent organic compounds including PCBs, dioxins and pesticides in the Great Lakes and the exposure of endocrine disruptors and human-induced hormones in lakes and watersheds.

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"You have to give them an option, so people don't feel trapped," said Ferrol Robinson, research fellow at the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, who has studied the issue internationally. "I really think it could work anywhere, but it takes effort."

"In a strange way he has the advantage of low or charactered expectations as he comes to the Senate," Weber said. "And when people find out he's a smart guy who is serious about issues and a hard worker, they will be very pleasantly surprised."

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