Norm Coleman

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 [...]

Tuesday was a day for Q and As with Norm Coleman, Michele Bachmann and Tom Petters. Coleman in the Harvard Crimson: “No regrets.” Bachmann in City Pages: “I’m proud.” Petters in federal court: “I apologize.” Al Franken got in on the game this morning on Minnesota Public Radio, where an interviewer said it sounds like he’d [...]

“Why not a picture of Tim Pawlenty with an unbuttoned shirt relaxing on a couch in the Twin Cities?” That’s what the Christian Broadcasting Network’s White House correspondent asks in an outraged response to Newsweek putting a photo of Sarah Palin in jogging togs on its cover, with the headline, “How do you solve a problem like [...]

While Minnesota’s drawn-out 2008 Senate election didn’t top MAD Magazine’s upcoming “MAD 20″ list of the “dumbest people, events and things” of 2009, the issue does promise a cure for “electile dysfunction” — in the form of a fake ad for “Democra-cialis,” showing Al Franken and Norm Coleman in side-by-side bathtubs.

The furor over the Stupak amendment banning abortion in the House health bill was already highly charged. Now one conservative commentator has dared touch the third rail in the right-to-choose debate: optional knee surgery.

So much for states’ rights: Iowa-based American Future Fund wants the Federal Elections Commission to rule against Minnesota’s long-standing ban on robocalls in order to include Minnesota in its national robocall campaigns, the Star Tribune reports. The group, which bills itself as a “conservative and free market” operation, filed a complaint with the FEC arguing [...]

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 president didn’t authorize it, so by definition the protest Sunday of a speech by former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice might have been torture. More than 100 people picketed Beth El Synagogue in St. Louis Park Sunday (Norm Coleman was inside, Coleen Rowley outside). Signs like “Try Condi Rice for War Crimes” referenced [...]

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 [...]

Actor Jon Voight dances to Minnesota Republicans’ tune over the next two days, appearing tonight with Gov. Tim Pawlenty at the first local fundraising event for his new Freedom First PAC in Minneapolis and on Thursday with U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Washington, D.C., answering her call to storm the U.S. Capitol to stop health [...]