The spin has already started, though. Minnesota Democrats Exposed quotes Seifert’s camp as saying “Seifert leads a former U.S. Senator, the Speaker of the House in Minnesota, and is tied with the Mayor of Minneapolis.”

Just to be clear, since I’m a pedantic wonkish type, nobody is leading in any of these matchups — they are all statistical dead heats. That includes the matchups where DFLers appear to lead. I’m not trying to spin, here — it’s too early to even bother with that. As we prepare for an onslaught of poll results, though, it would be good to make sure we’re all intelligent consumers of the results. After the break, I’ve included a quick explanation of how to read the numbers after factoring in the margin of error.

First of all, Rasmussen’s article doesn’t include the margin of error, unless you look really closely at the tiny print at the bottom. It’s 4.5 percent, because this survey only included 500 likely voters, a pretty small sample size.

With a margin of error or 4.5 percent, even the largest apparent lead — Seifert’s 39 percent vs. Kelliher’s 35 — is not even close. That’s because the margin of error is applied not to the gap between the candidates, but to each candidate’s results. Therefore, Seifert’s score is really somewhere between 34.5 percent and 43.5 percent, while Kelliher’s is between 30.5 percent and 39.5 percent. The overlap tells you that it’s a statistical tie, although it’s more likely that Seifert is leading than it is that Kelliher is leading.

I’m sure I’ll get a lot of comments saying that I’m afraid of the results and I’m trying to put a positive spin on them. But with around 20 percent undecided, there’s just no reason to spin. I’m just hoping that by defining our terms now, we can avoid having the campaigns trumpeting 3-4 point leads in the polls as if they’re actual news.

“The delegates need to know what they’re getting,” Seifert said. “Right now, they’re coming in and getting a good speech for five minutes and the people leave the room and they have no idea about what happens in terms of these other issues like legislation sponsored, etc. I think they need to know if someone needs to come in and wows you with fire breathing, that may be enough but I think people need to know the whole story.”

Marty Seifert is a pretty boring guy. That’s a nasty attack coming from him, even if you couldn’t quite tell. Although it took dozens of fairly passive-aggressive words, he’s using a favorite Republican attack, calling Emmer angry.

I agree with Seifert, although I’ll take it a step farther: I don’t think either of the Republican candidates is fit to be Governor. Emmer is not just angry, he doesn’t seem to know how to operate without having somebody to fight. Seifert, on the other hand, scarcely has a pulse, which is an entirely different problem, but a problem nonetheless.

Republican Tom Emmer has finally released his fundraising numbers and it’s now apparent why it has taken him so long — these are miserable.  To be fair, he raised a somewhat respectable total of $114,852 in 2009, but he spent $79,312 of it!  (I’ll do the math for you: that only leaves him with $19,154 on hand)  Given that his main opponent, Marty Seifert, raised $262,753 and has $133,072 in cash on hand, things don’t look to good for the E-Dog… Bottom line: Seifert has nearly 7 times the resources of his nearest opponent.

Next up: Pat Anderson.  Sure, she dropped out of the race, but these fundraising numbers may finally reveal why:  her Gubernatorial campaign ended the year over $30K in the hole!  A press release from State Auditor Rebecca Otto’s campaign dishes the details:

Anderson’s Gubernatorial campaign fared worse.  She raised just $29,659, which included a personal loan of $3,250, but she spent $65,596, ending the year with $39,174 in unpaid bills.

For those interested, Anderson’s new Auditor campaign has only $149 on hand…

And then we have Mark Dayton. For anyone who thought the former United States Senator wasn’t serious about this race, think again.  Mark Dayton loaned his campaign $570,000!  What’s more, he raised $72,000 in donations for a total of $641,821 in 2009!!  But what’s more, he only has $16,772 left in the bank!!!  Meaning he spent well over $600,000 on his gubernatorial bid last year!!!!  Alright, I’m out of exclamation points.  For those who remember, Dayton spent $12 million on his Senate race in 2000.

One’s thing for sure folks:  This is going to be one rip-roarin’ roller coaster!

The 2010 Gubernatorial Fundraising Cheat-Sheet has been updated with the above PLUS new information from Entenza, Gaertner, Kelley, and John Marty.

Emmer made news early last week by announcing that he would file an amicus brief in the unallotment case with the Minnesota Supreme Court.   Sadly, at least for Emmer, the Minnesota Supreme Court doesn’t accept briefs from just anyone and when the Court released the list of parties whose briefs they wanted to read on Thursday, Emmer hadn’t made the cut.  I can’t say I blame them - I’ve been refusing to listen to Emmer for years. The court accepted briefs from the City of St. Paul, the City of Minneapolis, The Minnesota House, The League of Women Voters, Common Cause, The League of Minnesota Cities and a couple of law professors and gave no explanation for why they rejected Emmer’s brief.

Still, the slight is especially unfortunate considering that Emmer (who is an attorney by profession) has long been rumored to be interested in running for Attorney General. In fact, rumors that Emmer might switch to the AG race have been intensifying in recent weeks.  But you have to ask yourself just how effective an Attorney General he would be considering he couldn’t even write a brief interesting enough to compete with the League of Women Voters.

R.T. Rybak’s campaign for governor announced today that it has raised a total of $278,000 in less than three months.  This includes $138,000 raised during the last eight weeks of 2009 and $140,000 raised to date through January 2010.  The Rybak for Governor Committee was created on November 5, 2009.

In addition, the Rybak for Mayor Committee, a separate committee, will report raising $389,000 from 2,457 donors in 2009.  In total, Rybak has raised $667,000 in 13 months through these two separate committees.

Rybak was long assumed to be running for Governor but only formally entered the race at the tail end of 2009, making him one of the latest entrants on the DFL side.  This is obviously why the campaign chose to shore up the numbers with additional information about his Mayoral fundraising.  Regardless, raising $278K in 12 weeks firmly places Rybak in the ranks of the more impressive fundraisers in this race.

Again, fundraising is not everything — by a long shot — but it is an important indicator both of the candidate’s ability to connect with voters and his or her ability to access the resources to mount a serious statewide campaign.  That being said, every single DFL candidate has posted numbers that should leave little worries on either front—especially given the dense field. The only candidates’ fundraising that I’d be worried about are Tom Emmer and Marty Seifert.  And, well, that makes me happy.

The 2010 Gubernatorial Fundraising Cheat-Sheet has been updated.

I fully intend on participating in precinct caucuses next Tuesday night (find your caucus location here).  I don’t dare miss caucuses because I want to be part of my DFL party unit and, basically, I just want to be involved.  But this presents me with a bit of a pickle when it comes to candidate endorsement time.  See, I’ve been trying my darndest to stay above the fray on this one—this website gives me a bit (read: very small) of a megaphone and I think our slate of possible candidates is just too good for me (or any DFLer, for that matter) to start a mud-fight (I want to throw mud across the aisle!).  As I’ve said many times before, I’d enthusiastically support any one of the candidates who has a hat in the ring.  Of course, I have my own private feelings about each, but I truly don’t have an overriding favorite.

So, with all that being said, I have two polls for you.

[EDIT: I’ve reversed the order of the polls because I think it makes more sense to have the catch-all first; and that might reduce overvoting on the caucus-goer poll]

For the first poll, everyone should vote.  The title of this post is a bit misleading because I won’t actually defer to the poll, but I am interested to see where people are at.  And I sincerely will take it into consideration when I caucus, so if you can’t attend, this is your chance to influence the outcome from your computer.

For the next poll, you’re on your honor: please only respond if you plan on caucusing.  Obviously you can be a sourpuss and respond even if you’re not caucusing, but that kind of ruins it and it makes you a big jerk.

Tom Bakk (D):

• Total: $361,927 (began fundraising in mid-2008)
• 2009 Total: $208,682
• Cash on Hand: $133,000
• Other: none reported.

Mark Dayton (D): [NEW]

• Total: $641,821 (committee registered in early 2009)
• 2009 Total: $641,821
• Cash on Hand: $16,772
• Other: He loaned $570,00 to his campaign (!)

Matt Entenza (D): [UPDATED]

• Total: Over $400,000 (began around January)
• 2009 Total: $405,286 from contributors in 2009.
• Cash on Hand: $73,917
• Other: Matt made a $10,000 contribution to the campaign and loaned the campaign $70,000.

Susan Gaertner (D): [NEW]

• Total: $200,411 (began in 2007!)
• 2009 Total: $110,828
• Cash on Hand: $4,347

Steve Kelley (D): [NEW]

• Total: About $200,ooo (he never closed out his 2006 committee, so there are nominal contributions in 2007 and 2008, but he didn’t really start his push for this cycle until 2010)
• 2009 Total: $187,249
• Cash on Hand: $39,541
• Other: Loaned $16,400 to his campaign

Margaret Anderson Kelliher (D):

• Total: $254,000 (formally announced in September, not sure when she began fundraising)
• 2009 Total: $254,000 from contributors in 2009.
• Cash on Hand: $81,000
• Other: She made a direct contribution of $250 to her campaign.

John Marty (D): [NEW]

• 2009 Total: $105,895
• Cash on Hand: $18,910
• Other: None reported.

Tom Rukavina (D):

• Total: $135,000 (announced exploratory committee in the summer of 2009)
• 2009 Total: $135,000
• Cash on Hand: $60,000
• Other: None reported.

R.T. Rybak (D):

• Total: $278,000 (started fundraising at very end of 2009)
• 2009 Total: $138,000 (additional $140K raised in January, 2010)
• Cash on Hand: $25,000
• Other: None reported.

Paul Thissen (D):

• Total: $370,000 (began fundraising in late 2008)
• 2009 Total: $233,000
• Cash on Hand: $85,000
• Other: He also loaned his campaign $20,000

Marty Seifert (R):

• Total: $262,753 (stepped down as minority leader in June to form exploratory committee)
• 2009 Total: $262,753
• Cash on Hand: $133,072.
• Other: He also loaned his campaign $20,000 and transferred $20,000 from his now defunct MN House campaign

Tom Emmer (R): [UPDATED]

• Total: $114,852 (began this summer)
• 2009 Total: $114,852
• Cash on Hand: $19,154.
• Other: via Scheck: “His spokesman said he loaned the campaign and gave in-kind contributions that amount to roughly $10,000.”

I said it once, and I’ll say it again:  The DFL numbers are blowing the GOP numbers out of the water. In fact, just for fun, let’s compare totals here:

Party Totals (so far): [UPDATED]

• DFL Candidates: $1,849,761 ($2,419,761 counting Dayton’s $570K loan to his campaign)
• GOP Candidates: $429,463 (includes GOP candidates I didn’t bother listing above)

Let’s not get overly-confident, but let’s also not fall for the argument that our cluttered field has dampened enthusiasm, because that is obviously not the case.

With $137,830 cash on hand, Sen. Tom Bakk said he is in a solid financial position to win the DFL endorsement for governor in April. A legislator from Cook, who represents the Arrowhead Region of the state, Bakk is chair of the Senate Tax Committee.

“Between raising $153,245 in 2008, $208,682 in 2009, and meeting the fundraising goal for January 2010, I will have $400,000 to spend on the endorsement process,” Bakk said. “Throughout my campaign I have focused on the economy and my determination to create jobs. I’ve had an honest conversation with Minnesotans about the serious financial challenges we face. I’ve stressed that by working together we can rebound the economy, create jobs, and make the tough choices necessary to build a stronger Minnesota.

Without diving into candidate-vs-candidate analysis here (and, really, there’s not much to say on this—Bakk’s number is incredibly similar to both Thissen and Entenza’s impressive fundraising totals), I want to repeat what I said when Thissen released his similarly impressive numbers:

That DFL candidates will collectively break $1 million in 2009 gubernatorial fundraising is a fore-gone conclusion at this point [with Bakk’s numbers, it’s now a reality]. This is simply amazing and a testament to the fact that an admittedly crowded field has not interfered with, but perhaps enhanced, the appeal of these individually tremendous candidates. I truly mean this (and this is why I haven’t made a decision which to support over the others), I would be ecstatic throwing my support behind any one of these guys or girls: Entenza, Dayton, Kelliher, Rukavina (how fun would that be!?), Gaertner, Bakk, Thissen, Kelley, Marty, Rybak, the list goes on—these are all amazing individuals with very Minnesotan visions of how to govern this state and the direction we need to head to survive in this increasingly competitive world.

The DFL is fired up and ready to go. If I were the GOP and I saw the numbers these guys are posting, I’d be shaking in my boots.

Well, Norm is out.

As much as I want to say “I told you so,” everything points to this decision legitimately being up in the air for the past week.  Pat Anderson, for example, seems to have genuinely thought Coleman was getting into this thing.  And there was evidence of Coleman doing polling.  Was Norm’s dream of turning the Governor’s mansion into the Playboy mansion finally put to rest by bad polling numbers, or did the longtime politician just quietly decide that it was time to take a break?  Honestly, I don’t know and I don’t care.  Bottom line is this:  No more Norm.

So, where does this leave things?

To put it succinctly:  it leaves the DFL candidate running against Marty Seifert with Tom Horner running as an Independent.

That’s my best guess people; now tell me how I’m wrong.  Well, before you do, I suppose I’ll explain my thinking:  Marty’s winning this endorsement race and I’ll bet decent dollars that he comes out of it with the nod.  Sure, there’s the possibility that Coleman’s official departure from the scene will push some delegates to reevaluate the field, take a second look at Emmer, blah, blah, blah.  I don’t buy it.  Seifert’s going to be the guy because he’s been working harder, hustling better, and just plain seems to want it more.

But guess what, I’m fine with either one of them (meaning either Seifert or Emmer—if Sen. Hann is the candidate I’ll hold a happy hour for Publius readers and buy the first round) because they’re both firmly in the deep end of the GOP party-pool.  Seriously, I can’t wait for the inevitable Seifert (or Emmer) pivot to the middle after the endorsement (I don’t think there will be a contested primary on the GOP side)—you know those votes you took in the legislature?  Yeah, all of those are public record.

Which is precisely why I think Tom Horner is going to get in this as the IP candidate.  The GOP candidates are far-right, the DFL will go to a primary, and now there’s no alternative in Norm Coleman:  Horner’s a bright guy and I’m sure he realizes this is the best shot an IP candidate will have in a long while. Just take this Horner quote Eric Black published:

“Does Norm Coleman deciding not to run make it a different kind of race and campaign against people who don’t have broad name id?” Horner asked himself aloud. “Absolutely. Is that a better opportunity for an Independence Party candidate? Absolutely.”

Oh, and Horner just officially formed an exploratory committee.  But here’s the thing:  Horner is a former Republican and definitely on the conservative side of the aisle.  So, with far-right GOP candidates, does he end up just splitting the ticket on the GOP side and pulling a few independents in, or does he manage some support from moderate democrats?

This is about to get interesting…

Former Senator Norm Coleman told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Chief Political Reporter Tom Hauser late Sunday he will not be running for governor in 2010.

He will make the official announcement on his Facebook page. He released the following statement to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS ahead of the announcement.

“I love Minnesota and I love public service, but this is not the right time for me and my family to conduct a campaign for Governor.

“Timing is everything. The timing on this race is both a bit too soon and a bit too late. It is too soon after my last race and too late to do a proper job of seeking the support of delegates who will decide in which direction our party should go. The commitments I have to my family and the work I am currently engaged in do not allow me to now go forward.”

More at KSTP.  Stay tuned here for more analysis.