Bean-feed nightmare spurred Coleman to end guv bid

Photo: wikipedia

Twenty years ago, a dream of being inside a movie-studio limousine when revolution breaks out made filmmaker Michael Moore swear off limo rides. It was a similar wrong-place, wrong-time nightmare that led St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman to swear off gubernatorial pursuits. ”I had a vision of me at a bean feed somewhere while the Central Corridor was collapsing,” Coleman told KSTP-AM today.

A sense of mayoral obligation to see the Central Corridor light-rail transit project through is one of the main specifics Coleman has been offering for his surprise decision yesterday: to leave outstate bean feeds to the remaining gubernatorial contenders and stick to current his job in St. Paul, for now.

But on KSTP, Coleman had another, newly minted explanation: “I thought that I’d be winning the Nobel Peace Prize.”

It was supposed to be a “done deal,” Coleman joked, that would leave him too busy running around the world on Peace Prize business to attend to affairs back home — a possible jab at Republicans who griped that Coleman listed statewide travel as mayoral rather than gubernatorial campaign expenses.

GOP complaints had no role in his decision not to run for governor, Coleman repeated on the radio. He also denied that his dropping out of the race was meant as any kind of shot at Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, who remains a candidate (unannounced) in the field for governor in 2010.

Coleman said he probably wouldn’t back another candidate for governor in advance of the DFL Party endorsement.

As for whether he would agree to another debate with his Republican opponent Eva Ng (besides an election-eve public radio date), Coleman said, “We’ll see.”

Then in commenting on Ng, he mistakenly slipped back into statewide-campaign mode for a moment: “She needs to present her vision for the state — er, the city.”