Monthly Archive for September, 2007

Andy Luger has been calling activists in the 3rd Congressional District today telling him that he is officially in the race and asking for their support.

He joins State Senator Terri Bonoff as the only other official candidate in the race.

ZACK UPDATES: Eric Black reports that he spoke with Andy Luger this morning and that he said:

“I decided very late last night, I’m not going to run for Congress,” he said.

Yesterday, all indications were that Luger was running. This is a dramatic reversal. One interesting question, does Luger’s withdrawal open the door to a Lillehaug candidacy?

In addition, former U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug, a DFLer, said he would not enter the race if Luger does.

Lillehaug would be a juggernaut.

MATT UPDATES: This was sitting in my inbox this morning but I missed it:

Late last night, Ellen and I decided that this was not the time for me to launch a campaign for Congress.

It was my plan and expectation to campaign essentially full time from here on out. My personal and professional commitments, however, make it very difficult for me to run the kind of campaign I want. As I sat down to map out my campaign plan and strategy for the next few months, I realized that my business travel schedule and my personal demands were inconsistent with a full time Congressional campaign. The race for the DFL endorsement over the next few months will be hotly contested and requires careful planning, concentration and a great deal of time. The delegates and decision makers in the 3rd deserve no less. Any of my good friends who are running, or considering running, will make great candidates. I wish them well.

When I run for office next, I will do so in the manner I know best. While Ellen and I are disappointed that the timing did not work out for us this time, we are grateful to all who pledged their support to my potential run.

Andy

The 3rd CD DFL monthly meeting tonight. Given Congressman Ramstad’s recent retirement, the place is lousy with potential DFL candidates. MN Publius has a source at the scene who is reporting back to us as it happens…

**St. Sen. Terri Bonoff has addressed the meeting and reportedly said “My family is living like I am running.” This confirms other reports that we are hearing that Senator Bonoff is leaning towards making the race.

**Andy Luger is traveling and was unable to make it to the meeting, but sent a representative who told the crowd that he is “thinking” about running “seriously considering running.”

**St. Rep. Steve Simon addressed the crowd and sounded very much like a candidate. Very polished. Our source tells us that he has given “the best speech so far”.

**St. Rep. Melissa Hortman was the first prospective candidate at the meeting, arriving 30 minutes early. Rep. Hortman has not yet spoken, apparently she has been busy working the crowd.

**Buck Humphrey “sauntered” in very late. He also has yet to speak.

We’ll update this post with more information as soon as we have it.

UPDATE - I got it wrong. Andy Luger’s representative said that he is “seriously considering running” not “thinking” about it as I reported earlier. Our sincere apologies to Andy Luger and his representative.

[Sean adds: we got a thorough account from our MNPublius source with some more interesting tidbits.]

The one common thread amongst all the legislators was the idea that they had run into roadblocks when trying to deal with a number of issues on the statewide level that were actually national problems. Education, transportation, and global warming were some of the issues I remember being mentioned.

From what I heard (Sean’s note: the source was with us on the phone when Buck spoke), Buck was the only one who didn’t talk about any issues.

With that in mind, I’m pretty happy. Everyone I saw spoke looked like they could be a congressperson already. I also have a pretty good feeling that everyone is going to honor the endorsement (even Buck).

One Kevin Ray Smith who ran against Wendy Wilde in the primary last year showed up as the meeting was closing, which may or may not mean anything. Last year at the CD3 convention he suggested giving everyone in congress a massage to relieve all the tension would be a great way to build bi-partisanship.