Walz, who had never run for elected office of any kind before this race, brought an authenticity that connected with voters, according to state Sen. John Hottinger, DFL-St. Peter. He never had the feel of a carefully crafted, overly managed, tightly scripted politician.

“He’s your good neighbor from next door,” Hottinger said. “Nobody made Tim Walz except Tim Walz.”

Gutknecht’s campaign manager, Nels Pierson, said Walz and his campaign staff ran hard and executed their campaign plan successfully. But Pierson said the election wasn’t so much a vote for Walz as it was a vote against President Bush, the Iraq war and the struggles of the GOP-led Congress.

“I don’t think the better man won the race,” Pierson said. “The election was about George Bush and the national party.”

Pierson, who also pointed to the influx of outside campaign ads from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and labor unions, said he isn’t sure there was much Gutknecht could have done to change the result.

Penny, who knocked off an incumbent congressman in 1982, thinks Gutknecht and his campaign didn’t take the Walz threat seriously. At least not soon enough.

“They just didn’t see it coming,” Penny said. “They didn’t realize they had a serious race on their hands until September, and by then Walz had a lot of momentum.”

On Wednesday night Walz, who had slept two hours in the previous two days, was still thanking volunteers and staff at a reception at the DFL headquarters in Mankato. When asked his opinion about the key to victory, he spoke of the nearly two years of hard work, of researching the issues, of learning the skills of campaigning, of hiring good staff and of steadily building grassroots support across southern Minnesota.

Mainly, though, he talked about the volunteers who made the campaign theirs.

“I’ve never heard ‘You won,’” Walz said. “It was ‘We won.’”