Alliance For A Better Minnesota

A new billboard at a busy St. Paul intersection takes aim at Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Paid for by a coalition of liberal advocacy groups and labor unions, the sign seeks to highlight Pawlenty’s potentially key role in the ongoing U.S. Senate contest. If the Minnesota Supreme Court rejects Norm Coleman’s appeal and certifies Al Franken [...]

A new television ad (that’s TV, not only Web) asks Gov. Tim Pawlenty to certify Al Franken as U.S. Senator-elect if the Democrat still has more votes than Republican Norm Coleman after a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling expected this summer.

Minnesotans have have had enough of Norm Coleman’s efforts to overturn the result of the U.S. Senate contest, a pair of new polls indicate. The Star Tribune’s Minnesota Poll found that 64 percent of respondents think Coleman should concede the race, while just 28 percent indicated that the Republican’s appeal to the state’s top court [...]

Back in December Norm Coleman said he would seek clearance from the Federal Elections Commission to use campaign funds to cover personal legal bills. But he never followed through. In the meantime the former senator continues to rack up astronomical legal bills as he pursues the U.S. Senate contest.

Norm Coleman insisted Thursday that he and his wife, Laurie, have done nothing wrong.
The former U.S. senator was talking about a Texas lawsuit’s claim that a campaign donor funneled the Colemans $75,000 disguised as a business transaction. Also, a Coleman spokesman insisted that after three and a half months the campaign is still assembling a request for [...]

A month after his aide said he’d seek “necessary approvals at the proper time,” former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman apparently has not asked the Federal Election Commission for an advisory opinion about whether he can spend campaign cash on legal expenses related to two civil suits that allege benefactor Nasser Kazeminy steered unreported payments to him [...]

Alliance for a Better Minnesota has sent letters to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics and the Federal Bureau of Investigation calling for investigations into allegations contained in a recently filed lawsuit involving Sen. Norm Coleman. The lawsuit, filed in a Texas court, alleges that Nasser Kazeminy, a longtime associate of the Senator, funneled $75,000 that was intended to benefit Coleman to a Minneapolis insurance firm.

Before Rep. Michele Bachmann’s Oct. 17 statements on MSNBC about “anti-America views” she feared some in Congress hold, the airwaves in the 6th Congressional District were relatively quiet. But over the past two weeks well over $1 million in campaign contributions from people outraged by her comments have poured into the campaign of DFLer El [...]

A new mailer sent out by the Alliance for a Better Minnesota accuses Republicans Michele Bachmann and Norm Coleman of being distracted from the work of “finding solutions to the most difficult economic crisis facing America since the Great Depression.” But Bachmann gets the sharpest jab: Instead of dealing with the financial meltdown she’s “questioning people’s patriotism.” The flyer prominently features a quote and image of Gen. Colin Powell who, referring to Bachmann’s infamous comments on “Hardball,” said, “We have got to stop this kind of nonsense and remember that our great strength is in our unity and our diversity.”

Bellwetherman? In an email Thursday about its campaign opposing the governor’s bonding bill vetoes, the Alliance for a Better Minnesota used a bizarre example as proof of an ailing economy’s effect on working Minnesotans: the firing of weatherman Paul Douglas (whose salary is estimated variously at between $250k and $500k). “Many families across Minnesota have [...]