The Hill is reporting that Norm Coleman may be facing a primary challenge from one of his former advisors.
Minnesota is a Democratic-leaning state and has no real love for the war, but if this is a strong enough primary challenge, Coleman will have to move to the right on the war in order to win a Republican primary, this is defintely a good sign.
How far to the right are the GOP primary voters in Minnesota? If they are so far gone that Coleman has to move a couple of clicks to the right in order to stay safe this will be good for us; however, is there a chance that Coleman could stay where he is and play the whole Goldilocks routine w/ MN voters for the general election -“he thinks I’m too left and then this other guy thinks I’m too right, so I must be doing something right.” (H/T to Arlen Specter, of course)
Am I the only one who is slightly worried that we’re blowing a major opportunity in Minnesota? In a blue state (and in a presidential year), why did all of our top prospects decline to run? I understand that not all of them were going to run and each had valid reasons (Walz just got his House seat, etc.) but it’s kind of frustrating that McCollum, Rybak and Coleman all decided to not get in, as well.
If I’m remembering them all, we have 5 possible candidates (Franken, Ciresi, Agre, Olson, and Nelson-Pallmeyer), but there doesn’t seem to be too much excitement going around for any of them. Is it now officially too late for any other viable challengers to emerge? Any whispers about a state legislator getting in? I don’t think all is lost, in fact I think we will be competitive here no matter what, but I was just wondering if we already have our field of Dems set.
*Are there any Humphrey/Wellstone/Mondale descendants who might have political aspirations? I know that just relying on a name isn’t the best democratic practice, but I was just curious if there were any capable relatives of the big Democratics families in the state that might be open to running.
*I know Walz and McCollum (especially w/ her Ciresi endorsement) are sitting this out, but do any of you that are knowledgeable of MN politics believe that either of the Twin Cities mayors could be talked into the race?
*Once again, is there any talk of a possible newcomer to the race? I see State Senators Mee Moua and Tarryl Clark’s names mentioned on Google searches (haha, seriously though), but there seem to be people who think Moua might go for Governor in 2010 and Clark for Congress….Any chance of a draft movement?
Who knows, maybe Agre will turn out to be a barnstorming candidate and shake up the Franken v. Ciresi dynamic. I just know that I wish MN and OR would offer up some inspiring developments. In Oregon, Alan Bates and Eileen Brady look like strong possibilities to joining Novick, hopefully Minnesota gets some lifeblood (which Agre could turn out being, don’t know how MN folks are feeling about him though).
Still some time, though not much.
I know a lot of people are worried about his negatives, and the things in his books that can be twisted around and used against him, and the fact that he’s a comedian, but I’m not. I’ve been paying a lot of attention to Franken’s campaign, and the more I see the more confident I become-kinda the same feeling I get from Steve Novick in Oregon or Marchand in New Hampshire. From what I can see, he’s running a aggressive face to face strategy and a lot of the concerns about him seem to be steadily melting away. Besides, if he wins the primary, he’s going to be battle tested and much stronger than before (the primary fight doesn’t seem to be turning nasty, at least from what I can tell, so I don’t think we have to worry about a divided party).
Besides, I’m not big on looking for the guy with the biggest name recognition or the most visible office possible. You never know when one of the “little guys” is going to win big. Think about it-we didn’t get Mark Warner in Virginia in ’06. A lot of people, even in the netroots, said that race was off the list. Even when Jim Webb was running hard and giving Allen a tough challenge, well before he had his macaca moment, a lot of people still wrote him off. Besides, (and someone should correct me on this if I’m wrong) wasn’t there a lot of complaining at first because there didn’t seem to be a really big name contender in the MN senate race last year to take on Kennedy? If memory serves, Klobuchar crushed the guy.