Will Norm Coleman be next victim of guv-race ‘buzz’ kill?

There’s the well-known Sports Illustrated curse that has seen athletes as mighty as Joe Mauer struggle soon after they appear on the magazine’s cover. Now for the bevy of Minnesota politicians hovering around the soon-to-be-open governor’s seat, a hex seems to descend once a “buzz” is detected.

The first to fall was St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman. In late August he hired an impressive campaign staff vastly overqualified to help him walk to re-election. “But with a primary barely two weeks away and little buzz about the race,” Jason Hoppin wrote at The Political Animal, “there’s no doubt the team is in place to help with Coleman’s expected bid for governor.”

Then, barely six weeks later, Coleman announced he wouldn’t run for governor after all.

Next was Brian Sullivan. On Election Day, Mary LaHammer wrote on her TPT blog “There’s a lot of talk (PIM and MPR) that businessman Brian Sullivan may indeed enter the race for governor.” LaHammer’s headline: “Brian Sullivan Buzz.”

Now, seven days later, Sullivan has emphatically declined to run.

That gives a different cast to Charley Shaw’s headline at Politics in Minnesota last Friday: “Buzz about a Norm Coleman run for governor is getting louder.” To make matters worse, Shaw writes that “journalist Barry Casselman told PIM he has noticed the uptick in buzz about Coleman.”

Could a Norm Coleman non-candidacy be the next shoe to drop in the great gubernatorial buzz-kill of 2009?