A veteran Minnesota campaign observer tells Brian Lambert that Al Franken’s camp freely tips him on U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman misdeeds but said nada about the Texas lawsuits. Via Lambert to the Slaughter:

Pat Kessler, WCCO’s political reporter, says he’s been approached countless times by the Franken crew over the months of the campaign with hot angles regarding some supposedly untoward Coleman activity or another, (that’s SOP, of course), but got nothing from Team Franken on this one. “Not a thing. I think they were surprised by it,” says Kessler.

And given the general clumsiness of the Franken campaign to date does Kessler think they are capable of playing something with this kind of Ted Stevens-style payola with a championship poker face? “Uh, no, I don’t.”

He emphasizes that any bombshell that drops in the final days of a campaign has [to] be viewed “with extreme skepticism”, which is not at all the same thing as dismissing it. If not a byzantine move by the DNC, someone, for example, could be using the glare and pressure of the final hours of the campaign to squeeze Coleman’s pals for a quick settlement on a wholly bogus claim.