The word from Kelley came via Twitter: “I am proud to have earned Congresswoman Betty McCollum’s support in my campaign for Minnesota governor!”

In May, McCollum’s fellow DFLer in Congress, Keith Ellison, endorsed Matt Entenza, another former state legislator seeking the governorship.

In 2008, McCollum endorsed Mike Ciresi over Al Franken in the race among DFLers to replace Republican Norm Coleman in the U.S. Senate, switching to Franken weeks after he received the party’s endorsement.

Ciresi, who dropped out of the endorsement race well before the party’s convention, told the Strib:

We would have beat [Coleman] by 10, 12 points. … I think I would have beat [Franken] in the primary. … I would have had to be nasty on him. … With the issues that the country is facing, I think Minnesotans deserve a better choice.

Nelson-Pallmeyer, who lost the endorsement on the first ballot to Franken at the DFL convention, told MnIndy by e-mail that he isn’t sure what would have happened if he’d been the party’s candidate:

Nobody knows. I sought DFL Party endorsement because I believed people were ready for a fundamental shift in priorities. I hoped to inspire people to believe that we could end the war in Iraq, address climate change in ways that revitalized the economy, and redirect resources to meet pressing health and other social needs. I felt I could hold Norm accountable for his record of consistently backing failed policies of a bad Bush administration. I also believed my message of hope and change was consistent with Obama’s message and campaign that did well in Minnesota. Would I have won? I don’t know. I think you would find it more fruitful to ask your question of other Minnesotans.

A little number crunching turns up a few surprises, like the fact that conservative broadcasting magnate Stanley Hubbard has so far given more to Senator Amy Klobuchar than he has to Norm Coleman. Or that Cargill MacMillan Jr.–heir to the Cargill fortune and roughly seven billion dollars wealthier than you–has given next to nothing: a thousand bucks each to Norm Coleman, John McCain and a Republican Congresswoman from California.

Shed no tears for Coleman–he’s received $24,700 in individual donations from Minnesota’s Forbes-listers, more than any other candidate.

Here’s how each Minnesotan ranked on the Forbes list, how much they’ve been giving, and to whom.

No. 42a, Whitney MacMillan

Cargill heirs Whitney MacMillan and Cargill MacMillan Jr. are tied for the distinction of richest Minnesotan (and 42nd richest American).

Born in 1929, Whitney MacMillan ran Cargill from 1976-1995 and was the last Cargill/MacMillan family member to head the company. Here’s what his political spending looks like:

$6,200 to Norm Coleman
$3,300 to Erik Paulsen
$4,400 to the Republican Party of Minnesota
$4,600 to Brian Davis
$2,000 to Michele Bachmann
$1,000 to John Kline
$250 to Rod Grams

MacMillan also sent $1,000 each to Republican Senators in Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, and New Hampshire.

Total contributions: $25,750

No. 42b, Cargill MacMillan Jr.

Cargill MacMillan Jr. must not get as many party invitations as Whitney. There are just three contributions on record this cycle for the heir who saw his massive wealth double in the last year.

$1,000 to Norm Coleman
$1,000 to John McCain
$1,000 to Mary Bono Mack (R, CA)

Total contributions: $3,000

No. 102, Carl Pohlad

Carl Pohlad once told the Star Tribune: “All I wanted in life was to make a $100 a week and have two suits of clothes–one for summer and one for winter.” Notoriously frugal, Pohlad doesn’t throw much into politics. But he did earn himself the distinction as the only rich person on this list to give a large contribution to Barack Obama. And his donation to the Major League Baseball Commissioner’s office was mostly a contribution to the Democratic party. Of the $273,000 the office has contributed so far in this election cycle, 62% of that green turned blue. Still, he gave up $5,600 to the other side, with a sizable chunk of change going to the Norm Coleman-affiliated Northstar Leadership PAC.

$9,200 to Barack Obama
$5,000 to the Northstar Leadership PAC
$5,000 to MLB Commissioner’s Office
$600 to Norm Coleman

Total contributions: $19,800

No. 105, Richard Schulze

Best Buy founder Richard Schulze is sitting on $3.5 billion dollars and put most of his recent political contributions into the U.S. Senate race. Norm Coleman got $2,600 but Mike Ciresi, a one-time contender for Coleman’s seat, got $2,300.

$2,600 to Norm Coleman
$2,300 Mike Ciresi
$1,100 to the Republican National Committee
$1,000 to Jim Ramstad

Total contributions: $7,000

No. 123, Glen Taylor

So long as you are a Republican, Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor is a generous man. If you are the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Taylor is exceedingly generous–$45,000 generous. Here is a man who wants a Republican-controlled Senate and is willing to pay for it.

$45,700 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee
$7,200 to the Republican Party of Minnesota
$4,600 to John McCain
$3,100 to Norm Coleman
$2,000 to Michele Bachmann
$1,000 to Brian Davis
$1,000 to Erik Paulsen
$1,000 to John Kline
$200 to the Republican National Committee

Total contributions: $65,800

No. 163, Mary Janet Cargill

Mary Janet Cargill apparently does not like to get her money mixed up in politics. She contributed to no campaign for national office. She supported no party. Fair enough, with $2.5 billion who needs politicians? Wait.

No. 281a, Barbara Carlson Gage

Locked in a $1.7 billion three-way tie for least-rich richest Minnesotans (the 281 slot on Forbes’ list) are Barbara Carlson Gage, Mary Carlson Nelson, and Stanley Hubbard.

When she’s not christening ships, Barbara Carlson Gage is–truth is I don’t know what she’s doing. But here’s who she’s been giving to:

$4,600 to John McCain
$2,600 to Norm Coleman
$2,300 to Rudy Giuliani
$1,000 to Jim Ramstad
$500 to Brack Obama
$500 to Amy Klobuchar

Total contributions: $10,500

No. 281b, Marilyn Carlson Nelson

With just a few exceptions, the Carlson sisters’ money runs red. Here are Carlson Co. CEO Marilyn Carlson Nelson’s contributions for the current election cycle:

$8,110 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee
$6,900 to John McCain
$3,600 to Norm Coleman
$2,300 to Rudy Guiliani
$2,300 to Mike Ciresi
$360 to Elizabeth Dole

Total contributions: $21,270

No. 281c, Stanley S. Hubbard

Conservative broadcasting magnate Stanley Hubbard seems to be having the most fun of the bunch. He’s given overwhelmingly to the Republican cause, with a few notable exceptions. He gave $5,000 to Norm Coleman but $5,100 to staunch Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, who isn’t even facing re-election. He gave $2,300 to Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney (before backing McCain) but he gave the same contribution to one-time Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson of New Mexico, where Hubbard owns four NBC affiliates.

$19,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee
$10,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee
$10,000 to the Republican Campaign Committee of New Mexico
$4,600 to Michele Bachmann
$6,600 to Erik Paulsen
$6,600 to Dick Day
$5,100 to Amy Klobuchar
$5,000 to Norm Coleman
$5,000 to the Freedom & Security PAC
$5,000 to the National Association of Broadcasters
$5,000 to Northstar Leadership PAC
$5,000 to the Great Plains Leadership Fund
$4,600 to John McCain
$4,600 to John Kline
$2,500 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
$3,300 to Rudy Giuliani
$2,300 to Mitt Romney
$2,300 to Bill Richardson
$2,300 to Mike Ciresi
$1,300 to Pete Domenici
$1,000 to John Thune (R, SD)
$1,000 to Bob Schaffer (R, CO)
$1,000 to Terri Bonoff
$500 to Vito Fossella (R, NY)
$200 to the Republican Central Committee of South Dakota

Total contributions: $113,800

For more: Read “The Crunch,” Paul Demko’s ongoing multi-part series on Minnesota’s top-100 political contributors.

Vance Opperman has been a major player in Democratic politics in Minnesota for four decades. In 1968, after helping lead opposition to the Vietnam War in Minneapolis, he was elected chair of the Hennepin County DFL. The recent law school graduate was just 25 years old.

Opperman went on to found a highly successful law firm, McGovern, Opperman & Paquin, amassing millions in the process. In 1991 the National Law Journal named him one of the 100 most influential attorneys in the country. But the majority of Opperman’s fortune came from the 1996 sale of West Publishing, the legal publishing behemoth, to the Canadian firm Thompson Corp. for $3.4 billion.

His success translated into huge amounts of cash for Democratic candidates and causes. In 1995 and 1996, Opperman and his wife Darin gave the Democrats at least $350,000 to bolster the re-election prospects of President Clinton. A 1998 City Pages cover story referred to Opperman as “the most powerful man you’ve never heard of.”

“When I was growing up, service in public office was a high honor,” Opperman told reporter Britt Robson at the time. “And people said, ‘I am giving up something of my life to give to the community. I have chosen this as a public service.’ And they meant it when they said that, and I think other people believed it.

“Now, you have to be crazy to run for office, and if you do, most of your neighbors immediately assume you are a crook. And that should make all of us a little bit sad.”

Opperman’s apparent disgust with the cynicism of modern politics, however, has not dissuaded him from continuing to play an outsized role in DFL campaigns in the ensuing years. According to a 2003 report by the Institute on Money in State Politics, he contributed $243,640 to Democratic Party committees between 1998 and 2002 — making him the second largest political donor in the state during that time period. So far this election cycle, Opperman and his wife Darin have contributed $46,000 to federal Democratic candidates and causes, placing the couple in 27th place on the list of Minnesota’s most generous political patrons.

The top 100 givers in the state have made $4.1 million in federal political contributions since the beginning of 2007, or more than $40,000 per household. Republican donors have cut checks for $2.3 million, while their Democratic counterparts have handed out $1.8 million. To get a better understanding of the state’s most generous political patrons, the Minnesota Independent commissioned a study by the Center for Responsive Politics looking at the top 100 contributors.

In the first four installments of this series we looked at the bottom seventy members of the list, those contributing between $23,000 and $44,000. Today we examine places 21 through 30. Donors on this section of the list contributed a total of $477,523 to federal political candidates and causes during the first 18 months of this election cycle. Republican contributors dominated this section of the list, with the GOP getting roughly 70 percent of their donations.

Robert Cummins is in many ways Opperman’s GOP counterpart. He has long been one of the most conspicuous GOP rainmakers in the state. The notoriously media-shy CEO of Plymouth-based Primera Technology has helped pad the coffers of groups across the conservative landscape. He’s given more than $300,000 directly to the state Republican party in the last decade and is a key donor to influential advocacy groups like the Taxpayer’s League of Minnesota and the Freedom Club PAC, which he helped found a decade ago.

Cummins has also been the leading financial backer of efforts to ban gay marriage in Minnesota. In recent years he has contributed more than $400,000 to Minnesota Citizens in Defense of Marriage and Minnesotans for Marriage. Both organizations have advocated for a Constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex unions.

In the first 18 months of this election cycle, Robert Cummins and his wife Joan have contributed $53,600 to federal GOP candidates and causes, placing them 21st on the list of Minnesota’s top political patrons. They’ve both written checks to all credible Republican Congressional contenders, including maximum $4,600 contributions from each of them to Sen. Norm Coleman. The couple have also chipped in $20,000 to the state GOP’s coffers this election cycle.

Another name on the GOP side of the ledger that’s no surprise is Glen Taylor. The Minnesota Timberwolves owner grew up on a farm in Comfrey, Minnesota. In 1975 he purchased a Mankato printing business that he’d worked at since graduating from college and transformed it into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise known as Taylor Corporation. Earlier this month Forbes estimated his current wealth at $3.3 billion. The Mankato businessman served as a Republican state senator from 1980 to 1986, rising to the post of Minority Leader.

Taylor and his wife Becky have contributed at least $48,900 to federal GOP candidates and causes so far this election cycle. That total includes $17,200 for the state GOP.

Taylor is not the only prominent Minnesota businessman writing big checks to Republican candidates. John Goodman, CEO of the Goodman Group, a Chaska-based development firm that specializes in building nursing homes and retirement communities, clocks in at 25th on the list. The Goodman household has doled out $48,150 so far this election cycle, almost exclusively to Republicans. The one exception? A $2,300 contribution to state senator Terri Bonoff, who unsuccessfully sought the DFL endorsement earlier this year in the Third Congressional District.

In 2002 Mark Davis expressed his disgust at electoral politics in an interview with Connect Business Magazine. “I am losing faith in our political system and political parties,” he said. “Now that our society has dug itself into thinking government can solve its problems, it will be hard for us to dig our way out.” But this lack of faith in government hasn’t stopped the president of Le Sueur-based dairy products company Davisco Foods International from giving generously to Republican politicians. Davis and his wife Mary have doled out at least $46,200 to GOP candidates since the beginning of 2007.

Despite the preponderance of Republican donors on this section of the list, one other Democratic name pops out: Mike Ciresi. The attorney gained notoriety for helping negotiate the state’s $6 billion settlement with tobacco companies in 1998. He has twice run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, most recently seeking this year’s DFL endorsement to take on Coleman. Ciresi and his wife Ann have given $45,273 to DFL candidates so far this election cycle, including donations to every Minnesota Congressional contender except for Collin Peterson.

Here’s the complete list of donors occupying slots 21 through 30:

21. Robert and Joan Cummins, Deephaven, Primera Technology, $53,600

22. Tim Owens, Wayzata, Voyageur Financial Services, $50,550

23. Daniel J. Starks, St. Paul, no employer listed, $49,100

24. Glen and Becky Taylor, Mankato, Taylor Corp., $48,900

25. John and Sidney Goodman, Minnetonka, Goodman Group, $48,150

26. Mark and Mary Davis, Saint Peter, Davisco Foods International, $46,200

27. Vance and Darin Opperman, Minneapolis, Key Investment, $46,000

28. Bruce Dayton, Wayzata, retired, $45,400

29. Mike and Ann Ciresi, Mendota Heights, Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, $45,273

30. John and Mary Wren, Stillwater, Lakeville Motor Express, $44,350

Previously in The Crunch:

Minnesota’s top 100 political givers: 31 to 40

Minnesota’s top 100 political givers: 41 to 50
Minnesota’s top 100 political givers: 51 to 75
Minnesota’s Top 100 political givers: 76 to 100

Among the primary gripes about Al Franken’s candidacy in the long lead up to the DFL convention has been that he’s not particularly impressive on the stump. For someone who’s spent his life in the entertainmbent business he can be surprisingly stiff and rambling.

“When it comes to debates he is very, very poor,” says delegate Barb Olsen, for example, who started out a Franken supporter, but was won over by Nelson-Pallmeyer at an early debate. “That’s going to be needed in the general election agiainst Norm Coleman.”

Franken had a final opportunity to change that perception in an hour-long Q & A session before balloting begins for the DFL endorsement. Given that his support is undoubtedly a bit soft following weeks of negative media coverage, it was also a potentially treacherous event.

Unfortunately for Franken, Nelson-Pallmeyer is no stodgy academic. He’s a dynamic speaker who throws out plenty of red meat for the DFL faithful.

The freewheeling debate touched on Iraq, immigration, health care, and economic issues. Franken gave a particularly strong answer when asked why he’s a Democrat. He mentioned that his father was a staunch Republican until the civil rights movement. But after witnessing protesters being assaulted by firehoses in Alabama his perspective changed. “My dad said that is wrong,” Franken recalls. “No jew can be for that.”

Nelson-Pallmeyer used the question to criticize the Democratic party for its feeble conduct in the run-up to the Iraq war. “If Democrats had stood up to the politics of fear we would not be in Iraq today,” he stated.

The college professor also sought to differentiate himself from Franken on health-care issues, arguing that we need a national, single-payer health care plan. “It’s not enough to say you are for universal health care,” he said. “I love my mom and apple pie too, but how do we get there?”

Franken countered by saying he wants to get to universal health care as quickly as possible, no matter what the system. “You don’t have to be sick to know that our healthcare system is broken,” he stated.

Immediately after the debate, the Franken campaign announced a minor boon for his candidacy: the endorsement of the DFL Feminist Caucus. “Al very strongly demonstrated an understanding of our issues and we know he’ll represent us in Washington,” said caucus member Jackie Stevenson in a statement. Given recent criticism from female DFL legislators about some of Franken’s past writings, this could prove influential with some delegates.

“I listened to Al Franken for all the years that he was on Air America,” says Olsen, a veteran Democratic Party activist. “I was an incredible fan and think he’s done wonderful things for progressive politics.”

Before heading south to the Twin Cities, Olsen stopped off at Northern Waters Smokehaus to purchase some smoked whitefish for Franken, a delicacy that she knew he craved. She packed it on ice and made the 150-mile drive to Augsburg.

Olsen parked herself in the front row of the forum, which featured all four candidates who were then seeking the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) endorsement. With the pungent smell of smoked whitefish emanating from beneath her chair, she fully expected to be wowed by Franken.

But Olsen quickly found herself gravitating to another candidate on the “Progressive Promise” panel. “I was just completely taken aback by this gentleman,” she recalls. “I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I really didn’t know anything about him. Whenever Al stood up I really wanted to feel the same about his answers, but I didn’t.”

At the close of the forum, Olsen found herself with a dilemma. “I kept thinking ‘Oh now what am I going to do with this fish?’” she recalls.

Ultimately Olsen handed over the gift to Franken as originally intended, but her political allegiance went to the other candidate on the panel who had captivated her that day, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer. The University of St. Thomas professor and liberal activist is now Franken’s last remaining contender for the DFL endorsement.

Continued: Click “Read more”Since attorney Mike Ciresi dropped out of the race in March, the conventional wisdom has been that Franken is the de facto DFL nominee to face off against incumbent Norm Coleman in one of the most anticipated 2008 Senate races in the country. With a staggering $10 million raised and nearly across-the-board support from organized labor and other party kingmakers, Franken’s campaign has generally been regarded as an unstoppable political force. National pundits like the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza and the Atlantic Monthly’s Mark Ambinder typically don’t deem Nelson-Pallmeyer’s modestly funded, grassroots candidacy worth a mention. He has been dismissed as an afterthought, a liberal gadfly with zero hope of actually securing party backing.

But as Franken’s campaign has been repeatedly tripped up by controversies — his failure to properly pay $70,000 in income taxes and penalties in 17 states, a 2000 sex fantasy article he wrote for Playboy and a proposed 1995 Saturday Night Live skit that joked about rape — Nelson-Pallmeyer’s upstart campaign has won the allegiance of many DFL delegates. With the DFL state convention taking place in Rochester this weekend, it’s an open question which candidate will ultimately emerge with the party’s endorsement. The recent indications that Ciresi is seriously weighing a revival of his candidacy and may run against the DFL nominee in the primary election only further undermines the once-seeming inevitability of Franken’s campaign.

Nelson-Pallmeyer’s supporters, while studiously avoiding any mention of Franken’s troubles, are optimistic that they can pull off a stunning upset at Saturday’s endorsement vote. “We’re feeling very, very excited about walking into the convention this weekend in Rochester,” says Chris McNellis, Nelson-Pallmeyer’s campaign manager. “It’s getting more and more competitive every day. We continue to pick up new delegates.”

While such pie-in-the-sky optimism is a hallmark of longshot political contenders, there are indications that Nelson-Pallmeyer will be more than an afterthought at the convention. Earlier this week Franken picked up the endorsement of former Vice President Al Gore, but Nelson-Pallmeyer  countered with a much-lower profile vow of support that could ultimately prove more persuasive to the party’s 1,400 delegates.

Ben Goldfarb, a respected political strategist who served as campaign manager for Amy Klobuchar’s successful 2006 Senate run, sent out a letter to delegates laying out why he believes Nelson-Pallmeyer has a legitimate shot at unseating Coleman. Goldfarb argued that the challenger presents a stark contrast to the incumbent that will be easy to convey to voters, that Minnesotans have a long history of backing unorthodox candidates, and that as the DFL-endorsee, Nelson-Pallmeyer will ultimately be able to raise sufficient funds to run a viable campaign. “But as you make your decision on Saturday, I hope you think first about which candidate you believe in most, which candidate speaks to your hopes,” Goldfarb concluded. “And with confidence that he can indeed win this fall, I hope you cast your ballot for Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer for Senate.”

To spring such an upset, Nelson-Pallmeyer will need to win over more voters like Terry Gydesen. A veteran photographer, Gydesen cut her teeth covering the insurgent senate run of Paul Wellstone in 1990. She initially met Franken at a Weisman Art Museum party in 2003 to celebrate the release of her book, Twelve Years and Thirteen Days: Remembering Paul and Sheila Wellstone. The comedian was in town to hawk a book and agreed to make an appearance. “It threw the event into the stratosphere,” Gydesen recalls. “Every square inch of that museum was packed.”

This connection with Franken led the photographer to initially believe that she’d support his campaign when she decided to become a DFL delegate for the first time. Gydesen placed a Franken bumper sticker on her car. She caucused uncommitted at her local party convention, however, hoping to stay on good terms with both candidates and document the campaign.

Watching the two candidates over a course of months, she grew increasingly uneasy with the direction of the Franken campaign, particularly the lack of a campaign manager guiding the effort. “I was horrified by that,” she says.

The breaking point for Gydesen came at the 4th Congressional District convention in April. She was baffled by the Franken camp’s decision to fight a proposed question-and-answer session with the two candidates. In talking with Franken, Gydesen was also distressed by how unenthusiastic the candidate seemed. “Oh my god, he looks exhausted,” she recalls thinking. “I just looked at him and thought, ‘If you’re this tired now and we’re not even in the general election yet, what’s it going to be like when Norm Coleman’s hammering on him?’ “

In the meantime Gydesen was becoming a Nelson-Pallmeyer believer. His stark liberalism and chaotic campaign headquarters reminded her of Wellstone in 1990. “The media and really the party has told us that it’s going to be a race between Al Franken and Norm Coleman,” she says. “But I have to go with my heart. Who is the person that’s most aligned with my values and I think has the best chance of beating Norm because of those values?”

Gydesen acknowledges that she may have drank way too much Kool-Aid, but she fully believes that Nelson-Pallmeyer will walk away from the convention as the DFL endorsee. “I’m quite certain it’s going to be Jack,” she says. “I’ve talked to a lot of people. I think people are rightfully concerned about whether Al can win.”

Betty Tisel is another convert. She backed Keith Ellison over Nelson-Pallmeyer in his previous run for Congress two years ago. But she’s now devoting countless hours to his Senate run, charged with keeping tabs on the allegiances of the 1,400 DFL delegates.

“I have watched the positions shift from strong Franken to leaning Franken to undecided to Jack,” Tisel says. She’s confident that Nelson-Pallmeyer will at the very least force Franken to a second ballot before he can secure support from the 60 percent of delegates needed for endorsement. “I have a giant sombrero that I’m going to have to eat if there’s not two ballots,” she laughs.

At Nelson-Pallmeyer’s campaign headquarters in Minneapolis, there is, in Tisel’s words, a “little dorky brass bell” that campaign workers ring each time the candidate has secured the commitment of another delegate. “That bell has been ringing more and more,” she says. “It’s like slugging down a can of one of those power drinks. It just really makes us feel confident.”

I just spoke with a DFL operative close to Ciresi who thinks the prospects of this happening are exceedingly slim. He puts the odds at “less than 1 in 20.” The reason? Ciresi long ago decided that he doesn’t want to spend his personal wealth to wage an expensive primary battle. “Does Mike Ciresi want to spend $5 million of his own money? No,” says this person, who would only speak on the condition of anonymity.

He argues that Rep. Betty McCollum’s pointed critique, delivered just a week before the DFL-endorsing convention, was more likely prompted by worries about Franken’s impact on other races, particularly the Congressional campaigns of Ashwin Madia, Elwyn Tinklenberg, and Steve Sarvi. “Porn doesn’t sell with women and children,” he says. “Writing graphic porn, I just think it crosses the line on judgment.”

This DFL operative believes that Franken’s continuing struggles are more likely to open the door for Jesse Ventura to make a run. “Mike is out of this thing,” he concludes. “If a meltdown happened he’d come back, but he’s not planning on it. The odds on it are just so slim.”

In other words, Mike Ciresi is as good as back in the race. McCollum, remember, is a co-chair of the Ciresi for Senate campaign that folded its tent and retired to the sidelines back in March. At the time, Franken was gaining ground on Sen. Norm Coleman in head-to-head polls and seemed to be consolidating his hold on the delegates who will award the party’s endorsement. Since that time, the Franken campaign has slipped in most polls and fallen into an almost wholly reactive mode, answering one Republican volley after another. (Ironically, one of the stories buried this week by the Playboy flap is a new Rasmussen poll that shows Franken trailing 47-45, a gain that puts him in a virtual statistical tie with Coleman.)

It’s no secret that Ciresi has been setting the table for a possible re-entry to run against Franken in the fall Democratic primary. MinMon political analyst David Schultz said as much in an audiocast here almost a month ago, and the backstage chatter about it has reached such a crescendo that the Star Tribune took the highly unusual step of including Ciresi’s name in a Minnesota Poll published on May 18. (Previous MinMon items covered that poll and Strib Politically Connected editor Dennis McGrath’s rationale for including Ciresi.)

McCollum’s more or less frontal denunciation of Franken  was backed by withering words from Minnesota US Reps Tim Walz and Keith Ellison. Franken-on-toast is now officially a bipartisan special du jour. Depending on one’s view of Team Al, this is either a putsch or a badly needed intervention. But in any case, the timing and the cast of characters hardly seem happenstance.

Consider the chronology of the Playboy episode. Franken’s article was highlighted in a May 19 post by Republican operative Michael Brodkorb at Minnesota Democrats Exposed. It was noted in a Kevin Duchschere story in the next day’s Star Tribune, but then the story sat there for a week-plus, seemingly destined to remain dormant until it was time for the Coleman campaign and its 527 allies to gin up the 11th-hour broadcast ads and mailers. It was McCollum who made it a top-of-news-cycle story. And she did so just a week prior to the party’s endorsing convention, where her words — coupled with fairly broad activist support for the candidacy of Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer — are bound to exacerbate what already threatened to be an embarrassing lack of unanimity on behalf of the candidate who has been the anointed frontrunner since day one. No matter what happens when the Democrats gather next weekend, the big winner in the current round of Democratic Senate race fisticuffs is almost certain to be Ciresi.

Postscript: It’s worth noting that the Tim Walz political apparatus has genealogical ties to both the Franken and Ciresi Senate campaigns. Franken was an important fundraiser for Walz’s 2006 US House run. In March 2007, on the other hand, Walz’s widely praised campaign manager, Kerry Greeley, took over the reins of Ciresi’s campaign.

In politics there are races that someone wins and races that someone manages not to lose for the simple reason that not everyone can lose. The Minnesota US Senate contest is shaping up to be one of the latter. In one corner there is the not-very-popular, Bush-associated Republican officeholder with job approval ratings in the mid-40s; in the other a celebrity-turned-politico challenger whose negatives run even higher than those of the vulnerable-looking incumbent.

The Strib Minnesota Poll (story, questions) that came out yesterday shows Norm Coleman slaloming toward November with a 51-44 lead over Al Franken that seems to reflect a holding pattern in the race that’s obtained for the past couple of months now.

One curiosity: The survey, conducted for the Strib by Princeton Survey Research Associates, is the first Minnesota US Senate poll to include Mike Ciresi’s name since Ciresi dropped out of the race on March 10. It’s an unusual move that would seem to be predicated on the buzz that some Democrats want to see a challenge to Franken in the party’s fall primary. Even so, it seems odd that the Coleman-v-Ciresi graphic gets stand-alone play at the Strib website, while the Coleman-v-Franken graphic is paired with the Coleman-v-Nelson-Pallmeyer graphic.

I have a call into the Strib’s Dennis McGrath, who coordinated the survey with the polling firm, to ask about Ciresi’s inclusion. I’ll update if/when I hear from him. 
]]> http://minnesotaindependent.com/3956/new-star-tribune-minnesota-poll-on-senate-race-deals-a-wild-card-ciresi/feed 4 http://minnesotaindependent.com/3797/the-schultz-report-some-minnesota-dems-said-to-be-eyeing-primary-run-against-franken http://minnesotaindependent.com/3797/the-schultz-report-some-minnesota-dems-said-to-be-eyeing-primary-run-against-franken#comments Fri, 02 May 2008 15:44:56 +0000 Steve Perry http://www.minnesotaindependent.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/?p=3797 In this week’s Schultz Report, we discuss increasingly heated rumors that the turmoil surrounding tax-troubled, poll-challenged US Senate candidate Al Franken has some Minnesota Democrats weighing last-minute runs against Franken in this fall’s primary. Schultz names three names…]]>

In this week’s Schultz Report, we discuss increasingly heated rumors that the turmoil surrounding tax-troubled, poll-challenged US Senate candidate Al Franken has some Minnesota Democrats weighing last-minute runs against Franken in this fall’s primary. Schultz names three names that are on a lot of observers’ lips in recent days: Mike Ciresi, who suspended his own campaign a couple of months ago; Second District US Rep. Tim Walz, currently mounting his first re-election bid for that seat; and little-known Minnesota Senate tax committee chair Tom Bakk.

“Ciresi decided to drop out mostly because people said that it looked like Franken had the nomination all wrapped up,” notes Schultz. “Of all the possible candidates, he probably has the biggest star power and the biggest pockets. One’s going to have to have a lot of money to challenge Norm Coleman in a race that’s going to cost $10-15 million.

“Tim Walz is sort of the new darling of the Democrats. Normally people wouldn’t think a freshman would try to move from the House to the Senate. But the rumors about him running or being interested in running or being pushed to run were strong enough that he had to go on Minnesota Public Radio to deny that he was going to run for the Senate.

“Thomas Bakk is not a household name. He chairs the Senate Tax Committee. Most people probably have no idea who he is. The most important thing he seems to be doing right now is carrying a major bill that would give Mall of America multi-, multi-million dollar tax breaks to expand into the area right next to Ikea. He has said that he’s being encouraged by some people to enter the [US] Senate race. Whether that’s accurate, I don’t know. But that’s at least what he seems to be saying at this point.”

More: In the second half of today’s audiocast, Schultz reviews the collateral damage to the Obama campaign from Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s latest 15 minutes of fame, and questions the likelihood that DNC chair Howard Dean can bring Obama/Clinton to a close by the end of June.

Listen: David Schultz talks about the Franken campaign’s challenges — and potential challengers (15:48)