SAINT PAUL, Minn. — Governor and Democrat VP nominee Tim Walz is expected to make an appearance at the Minnesota State Fair. Walz announced the visit at a rally in Virginia Friday.
"To try to bring somebody in with all the resources and assets that have to come with that Secret Service umbrella is pretty challenging," Mike Olson, a former Secret Service senior special agent, said.
Those challenges mixed with the record high attendance figures – Friday drew 225,521 people – and security will be difficult.
"They'll establish some, some level of a temporary perimeter with the resources they have, that's going to be the hardest challenge," Olson said. "And I would predict they're not going to be able to stay there very long."
Olson's prediction comes with a history of his own – he worked Dick Cheney's visit to the fairgrounds in 2004.
"I can tell you just from that experience back then, it was very challenging to even try to get the motorcade close to where they wanted to go," Olson said.
Olson also says don't expect an official announcement as the campaign tries to draw as little attention before their visit.
"The off-the-record move is more favorable in an environment like that because then you're popping in, people don't know, so you have that element of surprise," he said. "You have people on the other side of the fairgrounds that are going to have no clue that the person was there."
The Minnesota State Fair declined to comment on Walz's trip the great Minnesota get-together. The Saint Paul Police Department also declined to comment, instead pointing us to the Secret Service.
"Keep things tight in something as expansive as the state fairgrounds, you don't want to spend a lot of time there," Olson said.