From the
can’t-make-this-up department:
[Chris] Coleman’s mayoral opponent, Eva Ng, is calling on Coleman to explain why his campaign committee is spending money on airline tickets, restaurants and hotels outside the city of St. Paul.
Included is a report showing Chris Coleman’s expenditures to the Young Democrats of America Convention, the Minnesota Building Trades Convention and the State Convention of the Minnesota Association of Justice. Stuff, that, um, high profile candidates do — regardless if they’re running for governor or not. Does anyone think Norm Coleman or Al Franken raised any money from outside the state? What about Tim Pawlenty? Think R.T. Rybak does anything outside the city limits of Minneapolis? Either way, is this really all Eva Ng has on Chris Coleman?
Here’s the kicker though: As reported by MPR’s Tom Scheck, Ms. Eva Ng is holding a fundraiser tonight in Inver Grove Heights. Which, by the way, is a city that is not Saint Paul.
Another kicker: It’s being held at a Baja Sol of all places. Why fast food for a fundraiser? Tony Sutton, MN GOP Chair is also the CEO of Baja Sol. (Couldn’t they have picked a Chair that was wasn’t the CEO of a fast food chain?)
Check out this juxtaposition of the latest two Twitter messages from the Minnesota GOP. Real smart work, guys.
Update: Dusty Trice relays the same reporting from MPR with his own take. LOL.
Tom Scheck just posted a clip from Midmorning where R.T. Rybak and Chris Coleman talk about Tim Pawlenty’s performance as Governor. I
f you are at all interested in the 2010 gubernatorial race, you must listen to this clip.
First off, anyone who thought that Rybak isn’t running for Governor needs to rethink their opinion. R.T. admitted that he is thinking about a campaign (no shock there) but far more importantly, he sounded like a candidate for Governor. He threw a couple of hard elbows towards Pawlenty - ripping him for his fiscal management (the Govenror has a lot to learn from what we’ve done in Minneapolis) and his presidential ambitions - but also test drove a couple of positive messages. Rybak clearly had a lot of fire in the belly this morning.
Coleman, who I am certain will run, also took a couple of shots at T-Paw, including a great line about the Governor’s performance on the hockey rink. Coleman, who plays hockey with the Governor and a few others from the Capitol crowd, said there has been discussion about whether the games violate the gift ban for all the times lobbyists serve up the puck to the Governor. This cannot make the mulleted one a happy camper
On the basis of this interview, it looks like both Mayors are going to run for Governor in 2010. Kudos to Kerri Miller for a great interview.
The hires I reported last night are official. Releases from the Coleman campaign and the DFL (regarding Stiles departure) are after the jump.
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We’ve just learned that Chris Coleman is going to announce two senior additions to his mayoral re-election campaign tomorrow afternoon.
Coleman will announce that John Stiles will be Campaign Manager and Lauren Beecham will be Finance Director.
Stiles is well known to the Minnesota press corps as the current Communications Director for the DFL. Before that, he did a stint with Ramsey County Commissioner Toni Carter and has been a key player in St. Paul DFL politics for years. Beecham is coming off a tour with Al Franken as Deputy Finance Director.
Stiles and Beecham join a political team that already includes heavyweights like Sara Grewing, Bob Hume, Kris Fredson and Erin Dady. That’s quite the collection of political talent. In fact, these hires will no doubt just add to the speculation that Coleman is gearing up for a gubernatorial run in 2010. I’ve always thought that Coleman would be a strong contender for the DFL nod and his ability to attract top notch staff only adds to that perception. With Tim Walz out of the race, Coleman has to be considered an early front-runner.
Tis the season for state level campaign finance reporting. In the 2010 gubernatorial race (which will occupy much of this blog’s attention in short order) we’ve got a couple of filings of note:
Tim Pawlenty
T-Paw raised $750k last year. That’s a lot of money. There are a couple of ways to look at this. Most obviously, it could be a sign that Pawlenty plans to run again. I have to admit the potency of this argument, but I’m still a skeptic. As we have noted time and time again, if Timmy has national ambitions (and he does) it makes very little sense for him to run again in 2010. So why would he raise all that money if he’s not running for re-election. One question to answer first: how much of that money can be transfered into a federal account? I actually have no idea, but my gut tells me that most of it should be transferable (Minnesota has tighter campaign finance laws than the feds). If it can be transfered, then the fact that T-Paw has a huge chunk of money sitting around means nothing in terms of his re-election prospects.
The DFLers
Susan Gaertner raised just $46k despite being in the race since 2003 (and that is just a small exageration). I am already ready to write off her campaign. John Marty raised $30k “in the last nine days of December.” I actually have very little to say about this - I think a thirty point loss (even if it was 14 years ago) should probably be a disqualifier. Mark Dayton and Matt Entenza both did not file, but we wouldn’t really care even if they had because they both can self-fund. This brings us to the big surprise of the reporting period: State Representative Paul Thissen raised $115,000 in “the last seven weeks” of 2008. For a heretofore unknown state legislator, that is pretty damn impressive. In fact, Thissen’s campaign has been pretty impressive overall during the last few weeks. If he can keep it up (and you have to wonder if he can - how much of that 115k came from the Minneapolis legal community? How much more can he raise with such a narrow financial base?), he might be able to make some waves in this contest.
Of course, the big fish have still yet to get into the race. Some other commenters have suggested that Chris Coleman and R.T. Rybak’s mayoral re-election bids will prevent them from running for Governor. Don’t believe it for a second. Coleman and Rybak will stay quiet until sometime in the late spring or early summer (when it would be too late for a serious re-election challenger to emerge) but I would be SHOCKED if at least one of them didn’t get into this race by this time next year. Speaker Kelliher is also a good bet to run, but she won’t make a move until the legislative session is over.
At an event at the Crown Plaza today, Chris Coleman announced that he’ll seek another term as Mayor of St. Paul. The Mayor, who won in a landslide four years ago, also rolled out a (very) long list of endorsements. The full list and his prepared remarks are available after the jump…
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The Obama campaign just hosted a conference call with Sen. John Kerry and St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman. The call was designed to prebutt McCain’s visit to Minnesota this afternoon, where the septuagenarian Senator is expected to discuss energy policy.
John Kerry labeled McCain a flip-flopper and accused him of doing the "double take dance." Kerry then noted all the flip-flops McCain has made on the energy front:
- From supporting a windfall profit tax to opposing it
- From opposing off-shore drilling to supporting it
- From supporting a mandatory cap and trade system to opposing it
- From opposing drilling in ANWR to "reconsidering" it
More Kerry: "Befre John can debate Barack Obama, he has to finish debating himself."
Mayor Coleman noted McCain’s deep affection for the "Washington gimmick," highlighting his support for a gas tax holiday (a proposal that has been widely criticisized by economists of all stripes). Coleman also pointed out that a gas tax holiday would drain money from infrastructure repair and said that "Minnesotans know the true cost of failing to invest in infrastructure."
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