Eighth Congressional District Republicans have endorsed Chip Cravaack to take on longtime northern Minnesota Congressman Jim Oberstar. Cravaack is an airline and Navy pilot from central Minnesota. Oberstar, from Chisholm, remains heavily favored and will still almost certainly win. That said, he’ll take some heat from Tea Party types and he might lose some of his pro-life voters angered over his vote health care reform bill. I don’t that’s fair, given Oberstar’s pro-life consistency, but I’ll not be wading into the scary, scary waters of what passes for debate on this issue.

Given the monumental task ahead of him, it should be noted that Cravaack is a little better organized than some of the candidates the GOP has fielded recently and will be enjoying the tailwind of the traditional midterm advantage for the minority party. Cravaack, if you recall, spoke to this blog a couple months ago. Unlike most MN-8 Republicans, Cravaack has done the math and knows that to win he’ll need Democrats and independents to change their votes in order to win. As a DFLer I was hoping they’d never figure this out, but those glory days may finally be passing — which could set up quite a skulltussle whenever Oberstar retires.