The great Minnesota get-together has been in full swing since last Thursday. I went to the fair on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon and got my fair share of cheese curds, pronto pups, mini doughnuts, and even a deep-fried candy bar. Minnesota’s state fair is the second largest state fair in the country (and third largest event in the nation). This year the fair was definitely not lacking in people, food, rides, and exhibits, but it was lacking in one thing: politics.

With a crowded field of hopefuls in both parties battling it out for the nomination and the eventual Governorship, it was odd to see only one of these candidates have a booth at the fair – Republican Marty Seifert. The booth cost less than $1,000, yet the only other stand-alone booth representing a politician was a booth representing a group whose purpose is to Draft R.T. Rybak to run for governor.

Back when Jesse Ventura was running his third party (and eventually succesful) campaign for governor, he stumped at his booth from sun-up till sun-down. The neon green and black campaign colors stood out from the competitors. It’s great that Marty Seifert has a booth at the state fair, but it’s just plain white and looks pretty dull (that coming from a political blogger, imagine the average apathetic American’s opinion!).

So why are more candidates not putting up booths? It’s beyond me. If you are going to run for governor, run like you mean it.

A few candidates do have some sort of display in the Republican or Democrat booth, respectively. Problem is, usually they don’t have a staffer working the booth. Perhaps I just went at a “bad” time (hard to believe during the afternoon of one of the busiest days of the fair is a “bad” time) but only one candidate had a volunteer representing them at the GOP booth. The Democrat booth I couldn’t even tell what was going on.

Both of the parties had booths (they were actually more buildings than booths) that simply were boring and didn’t really do much for me (and I’m sure for most fair-goers). The Republican booth has a very nice garden area in the back where you can sit back and relax, but the building itself is kind of bland with the only decorations random campaign signs (again, the white is just dull!). The Democrats had an “okay” display, but it seemed like the only real exciting part of it was all the Obama gear they were selling. The Republicans had an older gentlemen mumbling who knows what in a mike (I don’t think anyone could hear what the heck he was saying).

Both parties really just had awful displays. Combine this with a lack of booths for the candidates running for governor and it’s kind of hard to not agree that politicians (and the parties) really blew it this year.

Now I don’t like when people say something is a horrible idea and do not offer a better idea (or what they think is better) so here goes: If I was a campaign manager, it would be unacceptable not to have a booth for my candidate. I would make it a top priority. I would do what I could to make the booth stand out, and I would have my candidate there at least four hours a day. We’d do something to bring in the people, possibly giveaways but definitely some free stuff. You need to create excitement, at least to get people to take a second look at your stand.

For the parties, the possibilities are endless. Load up your site with representatives – both national and local. Try to always at least have a local rep. at the booth to talk to people. Make some appealing displays (the Republicans could have a field day with health care right now). Make use of video. If you have someone on a mike, make sure they aren’t rambling – it looks bad and makes people NOT want to come up. Have some sort of game set up. Make it exciting, fun, and engaging. Have contests. Have photo ops with politicians. Especially for Republicans, have as many young people manning the booth as possible.

This is one of the biggest events in the United States, and actually the biggest 12 day event in the nation. Both parties, and individual politicians, could do so much better than what they did this year.