As election years go, this is a rather quiet one

After a candidates' forum at the end of a long campaign day, four longtime west-metro members of the Minnesota House stood outside the Bloomington City Council chamber earlier this month and compared door-knocking notes.

It's quiet out there, the four DFLers told each other as the forum's moderator (me) eavesdropped. Not angry-quiet, the way it was in 2010, the Tea Party year. Not ominously quiet, as some remembered from the dark closing days of 2002. But so quiet that some voters seem unaware that an election is coming on Nov. 4.

"It's unique — like nothing I've seen before," said Bloomington Rep. Ann Lenczewski, who's running her 11th political race, nine of them in east Bloomington's state House district. Colleagues Jean Wagenius of Minneapolis, Ron Erhardt of Edina and Linda Slocum of Richfield nodded in affirmation.

"I ask [voters], 'Do you have any issues?' " Erhardt said. "It doesn't elicit a lot of response."

Has apathy afflicted Minnesotans this year? These veterans know better than to leap to that conclusion. With 36 House terms among them, they don't doubt that their constituents care deeply about schools, roads, transit, public safety and the rest, and about the price they pay for those services.

Here's another possibility: Minnesota is moving into a new political chapter. Old issues have passed away. New ones have yet to ripen into deeply and widely felt concerns. Candidates and voters have yet to figure out how to talk to each other about what's next — hence the quiet campaign.

This is a tentative notion. But this much is clear: Many of the issues about which Minnesotans have squabbled for the last decade or two have now either been resolved or lost their political punch.

There's no such talk this year because there's no red ink on future state balance sheets. It's bound to return one day. But that day will come slower and inflict less damage because of the income and cigarette tax increases of 2013, the budget reserve increase of 2014 and the 2012-14 repayment of the IOUs the state gave school districts during Deficit No. 2. State government has firmer financial ground beneath it than it has trod since the Arne Carlson administration.

Republican candidates still voice a desire for lower taxes. A few DFLers quietly agree. But "no new taxes" pledges are out of vogue, and the long-running tax debate is not the central campaign theme for either party. It's telling that when Republican candidates decry the 2013 tax bill enacted by DFL legislative majorities, they're as prone to complain about its authorization of a new state Senate office building as its income tax boost for top earners.

More examples: The way forward on health insurance may still be bumpy, but it's increasingly clear that the way is via the MNsure exchange. Nearly everybody now applauds more state support for preschool. Tuition has stopped climbing at state colleges and universities. Same-sex marriage is now law. So is a modest version of medical marijuana. The minimum wage jumped to $8.50 an hour on Aug. 1 and is set to keep climbing. Proponents of a photo ID requirement to vote have fallen pretty quiet after voters rejected the idea in 2012. Abortion and guns are still with us, but their ability to move voters isn't what it used to be.

Some folks might still be unhappy with how much public money is being used to build the NFL palace in Downtown East. But with the stadium's skeleton rising higher by the day, there's no turning back.

With all that decided, Minnesotans may be taking a collective deep breath this year. They know there's more work to be done to make schools more effective, transportation more reliable, and energy use cleaner and more efficient. They know too many Minnesotans are underemployed and that an aging society will present challenges yet unforeseen. But it may be that they aren't yet ready to grapple with those things in the state's political arena.

Last week, David Brooks of the New York Times said the nation is witnessing "the most boring and uncreative campaign I can remember. … Most campaigns just remind preconvinced voters how bad the other party is." He sees it as a prelude to an election that will "sort people more tightly into their pre-existing boxes." The result will be more gridlock in Washington, he predicted.

But Brooks also described how two metroplexes, San Francisco/Silicon Valley and Houston, are finding their own unique ways forward. Both are achieving prosperity, despite differing economic strategies and Washington's partisan paralysis. He might as easily have mentioned Minnesota, a state that has rebounded from recession as well as any in the nation by being willing for many years to chart its own course.

Minnesota may be catching its breath. But it is poised for a prosperity built on its traditional strengths, its well-educated population and high quality of life. Describing that opportunity and selling voters on how to seize it ought to be what candidates do in this quiet year, to build momentum for what's next.