I amost feel like I’m switching into Telethon mode now.  Because the subject of today’s stop on the tour around the MOB has been one of my favorite MOB blogs since the very early days of this blog – is, indeed, one of very few Minnesota blogs that was actually blogging before I was.  And it’s one of the single best, most incisively analytical poltical blogs (with a healthy side of geekery) ever on the Minnesota blog scene.  In a just world, he’d be as big as Ed Morrissey – his writing and analysis has always been in that league – and his blog would have the traffic to show it.

It’s Jay Reding.  JR’s blog dates back to 2001, and from about 2003 through 2006 or so, he was writing great stuff nearly daily.

As with so many bloggers, personal life gets in the way; Reding (if I recall correctly) went to law school somewhere along the way, and if all went well he should be into all that “new lawyer” stuff by now.  Either way, updates have been a little scarcer lately.

Excerpt?  With that much material to choose from?  Hard to do.  Here’s a bit from his look back at his 2009 predictions:

Politics/National

• President Barack Obama’s popularity with the left will bleed away as he moves to governing as a centrist.Correct: Late in the year, liberal dissatisfaction started growing, as the President chose to double down on Afghanistan and failed to back the public option in healthcare. While liberals still tend to support the President, Obama has not given them everything they want, and that has not made the liberals very happy.
• Card check legislation will be narrowly defeated in Congress, preserving the rights of the American worker to a secret ballot.Not Quite: Card check has been pushed off until next year, where it may well be defeated, but it hasn’t yet gone away as a political issue.
• The Republican Party will continue to spend a year in the wilderness, while the seeds of political renewal will come from outside the party structure.Correct: The GOP remains mired, but the real energy lies in the Tea Party movement. The media paints the Tea Partiers as a radical fringe, and some of them undoubtedly are. However, they have energy and motivation, and that can make all the difference. Whether the GOP likes it or not, they will have to ingratiate themselves with the Tea Party movement and capture that energy in a constructive way. Doing so without alienating the vital center will be difficult, but it’s not impossible.
• Vice President Biden will say something incredibly stupid, creating a great deal of tension between him and President Obama.Duh: Predicting a Joe Biden gaffe is like predicting that the sun will come up in the east.
• Congress will continue to be unpopular as the economy continues to backslide and more and more scandals mount. By the end of the year, faith in American government will be at a new low.Again, Duh: Congress continues to be wildly unpopular with the American electorate, and sweetheart deals, political payoffs, and rampant corruption are to blame. People regard Congress with the same level of distaste they do with plague rats and filthy diapers—and who can blame them?

That’s Jay Reding. Here’s hoping he finds the time to dive back into it.