Campaign Finance

Just when Margaret Anderson Kelliher appeared to be pulling away from the pack running for governor with a series of endorsements, charges that she violated campaign-finance rules are setting her apart in ways she didn’t need.

Despite losing to Rep. Keith Ellison by a record margin last November, Barb Davis White is giving it another go. The evangelical minister announced her candidacy in September, but no media outlets have made mention of it. And her campaign’s filings to the Federal Elections Commission have been rife with errors.

Updated: Something worth fighting for: “a culture that says helping our neighbors in difficult times is a good thing.” That’s the credo of DFLer Jim Meffert, who officially announced Tuesday he will make a run at unseating first-term U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen in Minnesota’s Third District next year.

Burberry, Britain’s once-staid fashion house, can’t help it if Sarah Palin wears their trademark plaid scarves. “[T]he conspicuousness of the pattern also means that the company has little control over how it is seen, or on whom,” the New Yorker magazine observed, in reference to Palin. Minneapolis has the same problem: today the Mill City [...]

As if Michele Bachmann’s 2010 re-election battle wasn’t already going to be a doozy, it’s begun shaping up as a proxy war between the forces of U.S. Sen. Al Franken and the man he bested in Minnesota’s recount, former Sen. Norm Coleman. “The eyes of the nation — and Michele Bachmann’s right-wing allies — will [...]

U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen is one of 33 Republicans in Congress who have “a giant target on their back” after voting against an overhaul of health-care system Saturday. That’s according to the Democratic National Committee, which announced plans to target Paulsen and other GOP reps whose districts voted for President Obama in 2008.

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak romped to a third term while openly flirting with a 2010 gubernatorial bid. Today a state agency rebuked him for mingling funds while pursuing the dual political contests. Will the ruling hurt Rybak’s political viability?

Surveying voters outside of the city last May meant Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak should have registered a gubernatorial campaign committee, the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board said in a ruling (pdf) announced today. The upshot: One R.T. Rybak campaign committee must pay another $26,500 to cover the cost of the survey. The board [...]

“As one of my good friends and supporters, I want you to know that today we filed the paperwork to create the R.T. Rybak for Governor Committee.” And so Minneapolis’ newly re-elected mayor at long last made his intentions clear — though murky syntax made it sound like he is one of his own good friends [...]

Gov. Pawlenty’s new Freedom First political action committee held its first local fundraiser tonight at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. About 250 people — the same size crowd Pawlenty drew at the PAC’s considerably more affordable pretzel reception in Washington, D.C. last month – paid $1,000 each to attend a reception on the hotel’s third [...]