Mark Dayton begins his push for higher taxes for the rich during the Beltrami County DFL's annual Presidents Day fundraiser in February 2009.

Mark Dayton’s best job in Minnesota politics was his first – as commissioner of economic development, tabbed by then-Gov. Rudy Perpich.

 “Congress and the Legislature are reactive bodies,” Dayton told me in an interview just days before he left the U.S. Senate. “I’m more of a pro-active kind of person. The best job I’ve had in government, really, was commissioner of economic development, because I got to be part of making projects happen. I could come back in a year and see cars and buildings where people are working at jobs as the result of something I participated in. 

  “That, to me, was the most rewarding and satisfying job I’ve had in government,” he said. “It’s taught me I’m better off where I can take the initiative with something and try to make something happen that’s going to make a difference in other people’s lives.”

At that time, I asked what his future would be like, and he said he wouldn’t rule out a run at politics again but didn’t necessarily hint at the governor’s race in 2010, as suggested by MinnPost today. Still, I think by the comments he made about how satisfying the job at Economic Development was, would certainly frame his desire o be governor and to make things happen and see results. That didn’t happen in Washington, D.C., where he served in the miniority.

The biggest challenge for Congress is breaking the connection of “big money” from the decisions, which Dayton told me in that December 2006 interview is the “cesspool which is created in Washington because the money buys votes and decisions that are not in the public interest or they benefit people who already have more than they need and short-shrifts people who need something genuinely from government.”

 Not wanting to spend time raising money was one of his key reasons for not seeking reelection to the Senate as he didn’t want to self-finance another campaign, either.