Photo: Ed Schultz Show

Al Franken paved the way. Has progressive talk radio become the Democratic Party’s new farm league for the U.S. Senate? Maybe so, if the chatter about Ed Schultz running to replace North Dakota’s retiring Byron Dorgan turns out to be more than just talk.

On MSNBC, the radio host’s cable TV home, Schultz said state House Minority Leader Merle Boucher had asked him to think about a Senate bid:

I’m flattered. I’m honored. I can’t say that I’m even considering it right now,” Schultz said. “I’m in a different place right now. So we’re a long way from any kind of consideration.”

Schultz called Republican Gov. John Hoeven, another likely candidate, “vulnerable.”

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) wouldn’t comment in keeping with policy, according to Hotline On Call.

“The Ed Schultz Show” is heard on many of the stations that carried Franken’s own radio show, including AM 950 in the Twin Cities.

Schultz’s daily MSNBC show gives him a television platform that Franken didn’t have in the years leading to his 2008 Senate campaign — except for talk-show appearances and  re-runs of Saturday Night Live and other shows and movies.

But with the election just 11 months off, Schultz would have a lot less time than the two years (plus some at eithe end) that Franken’s campaign enjoyed.

North Dakota broadcasting was Schultz’s unlikely springboard to the national media scene, but it was a football scholarship to Minnesota State University Moorhead (then known as Moorhead State College) that originally brought him north from his home state of Virginia.

Here is the clip of Schultz discussing his “official ask” to run for the Senate:

With more and more papers — including these nine — calling for Norm Coleman to concede the U.S. Senate race, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee wants to capitalize on what its hopes is growing voter disenchantment with the drawn-out affair. The DSCC is seeking signatures on a petition for Coleman to step down and, as part of its appeal, has created an interactive timeline of ways Coleman has “obstructed” the process.

Starting with Coleman’s Nov. 5 statement that’d he’d “step back” if trailing in the vote count, the timeline runs through Monday’s filing of an appeal to the state Supreme Court. Peppered in between are key votes that Minnesota’s second senator missed due to the unresolved election, including the Mar. 10 passage of the Omnibus Appropriations Act and the Jan. 22 passage of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

The DSCC is 5,000 signatures away from its goal of 100,000 people calling for Coleman to give it up.

The ruling took the form of an advisory opinion that sets a precedent for others interested in setting up the same sorts of accounts — such as, say, the Republican Party and former U.S. Sen. Coleman. Indeed, three Republican groups told the FEC they wanted to know the same thing.

Last week, the commission released three draft opinions, each with a different combination of approvals and disapprovals for Franken and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). At today’s five-hour meeting, the commission considered two additional alternatives, including one generated by a member of the commission.

Today’s ruling gives a green light to the DSCC to raise money for Franken’s cause independent of earlier donation limits.

An FEC spokesperson said the “no opinion” on Franken’s question essentially meant “We don’t know” or “We can’t decide.” That leaves the campaigns of both Franken and Coleman on their own as they try to determine what federal election law says about the highly unusual situation that both find themselves in — an undecided contest for U.S. Senate, still undecided more than four months after Election Day.

Franken’s request for an advisory opinion from the Federal Elections Commission — asking whether the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee can start its own fund to aid his cause — earned him some new friends.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Republican National Committee have told the FEC they agree with Franken and the DSCC: National party organizations should be able to raise money independent of the Franken campaign and that of former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman — and independent of the federal limits on contributions to the campaigns’ recount funds.

Franken attorney Marc Elias asked the FEC on Feb. 17 for an opinion within 10 days, citing rising costs from a legal battle “with no end in sight.” He followed up to emphasize the urgency in a Feb. 23 phone call to Cynthia Bauerly, a Democrat from Minnesota now serving as a commissioner on the FEC.

The NRSC had a field day contrasting Elias’ words with Senate Democrats’ vows to seat Franken by April, but in their comments to the FEC the Republican groups cite his phrase without irony.

Asked about the request during an appearance in Minneapolis last week, Franken appeared interested — he has himself, after all, been raising money since the election — but he told the Minnesota Independent he was leaving the details of such matters to his lawyers.

EDITOR’S NOTE
The Democratic Senate [sic] Campaign Committee is running TV ads featuring a Star Tribune reporter questioning Sen. Norm Coleman about a lawsuit noted in this report. The video in the ad was filmed without the knowledge or consent of the Star Tribune.

The original video shows Strib reporter Paul McEnroe trying to ask Coleman about the first lawsuit filed in Texas this week as Coleman left a St. Cloud cafe Tuesday. See the original video here. See the DSCC’s ad – and the halting count of specially-moderated reader comments at startribune.com – after the jump.

Online, editors have tagged Strib stories on the Coleman-cash allegations with this unusual warning in red type:

Due to the sensitive nature of this story, comments will be reviewed before being published.

UPDATE: As of 11:15 a.m. today, 156 reader comments had survived the Strib’s special moderation — but that number hadn’t changed for at least two hours.

UPDATE: As of 12:35 p.m., reader comments – the most recent of which carries a timestamp of 4:42 p.m. yesterday, on a story last updated yesterady at 11:04 p.m. — have dropped by one, to 155. That suggests startribune.com does indeed have a moderator at work, but one who has so far focused his or her efforts on removing reader comments about this “sensitive” story rather than allowing any new comments to appear.

UPDATE: At 8:30 p.m., still stuck at 155. Apparently the Star Tribune will not permit further online reader comment about today’s article, just as the newspaper banned its columnists from commenting about the election. Strib editors will allow themselves to publish the editor’s note, but it’s not clear why they saw a need, since the DSCC ad below refers only to “reporters” and makes no mention of the Star Tribune.