Bachmann plea for cash sent on “Senator Norm Coleman” letterhead

A letter from former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman soliciting money for U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann is printed on letterhead with images of not one but two U.S. Capitol domes and the heading “Senator Norm Coleman.” It’s customary to retain an honorific like “Senator” after leaving office, but the title carries extra zing coming from a guy who lost an election but still says “I don’t think we’ll ever know who got more votes.”

It’s not just the letterhead that suggests Coleman ought to still be in office. In the letter, Coleman contrasts “my fight to protect the integrity of every Minnesotan’s vote last November” with Sen. Al Franken’s “legal battle to deny honest Minnesotans a fair vote last November.”

In case anyone missed it at the top, his former title (without the “former”) appears again at the bottom, beneath his signature: “Senator Norm Coleman.”

That’s a slight variation on “Norm Coleman, United States Senate,” that came at the end of his correspondence while he was still in office. Back then he used official “United States Senate” letterhead (no domes, sometimes a gold eagle) with “Norm Coleman, Minnesota” discreetly tucked into a corner. That’s what he used shortly before taking office as well.

The website Checks & Balances first posted a synopsis of the letter Friday and then a full facsimile Monday. The jab at Franken comes as part of a paragraph that seems to use place names as code words for a gay-rights agenda he has said he opposes “adamantly.”

This year — with the election still 14 months away — [Bachmann's] opponents are already raising about $30,000 a week.

Make no mistake about it — this opposition funding isn’t coming from the Minnesotans she represents in Washington. It’s coming from the liberal netroots in places like San Francisco, Manhattan and Vermont. It’s coming from the same people who bankrolled Al Franken’s race against me and his legal battle to deny honest Minnesotans a fair vote last November.

DumpBachmann interprets the letter on Bachmann’s behalf as a sign that Coleman will run for governor in 2010.