Boschwitz served in the United States Senate until 1990 when he was defeated by Paul Wellstone. He’s been a top fundraiser GOPers, including George W. Bush. Boschwitz told the Star Tribune that helping Demos is aimed at helping Tom Emmer.

“And if we have a strong showing in the 5th District — which is principally the City of Minneapolis — we enormously enhance the probability of keeping the Minnesota Governorship. That is crucial,” he said.

Demos is an associate pastor who said the end-times could come as early as 2009 and that “the spirit of the anti-Christ is on the rise.”

Pastor Brad Brandon

A prominent pastor and GOP activist says Republicans in the Minnesota Legislature are blocking a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in order to save face in the 2010 elections. Pastor Brad Brandon, who was a staffer for former Senator Rudy Boschwitz, sent out an appeal to his radio show listeners to pressure the Republican Caucus to move on banning gay marriage:

[L]ate yesterday, we learned that this initiative is being blocked. You would think that it is being blocked by Democrats or Liberals. But surprisingly enough it is being blocked by the Republicans. YES THE REPUBLICANS! The House Republican Caucus is saying that they want to stay away from the ‘social issues’, because of the election year. Insiders tell us that they are also getting pressure from wealthy business donors to focus exclusively on taxes and spending and stay away from “social issues”. So they are backing away from their support of traditional marriage. Truly, “the fear of man bringeth a snare” and “the love of money is the root of all evil”. Looks like it’s politics as usual and it’s time for God’s people to step up.

In a follow-up to that message, Brandon said that Republican representatives were lying about blocking the bill:

I am hearing from a lot of you that you are being told, by the Representatives, that there is no Republican resistance about the MN Marriage Amendment. This simply is not true. Remember, it’s politics. They are going to tell you anything to make you happy. I just talked our insiders, this morning, and they told us this just simply is not the truth. There is a very strong resistance to the MN Marriage Amendment, coming from the Republican Caucus Leaders.

Brandon is pastor of Berean Bible Baptist Church in Hastings and host of the “Word of Truth Radio Program” on KDWA 1460 AM.

In the main atrium of the downtown Minneapolis library, Norm Coleman beams at passersby — from the cover of ”Shared Vision: Norm Coleman and the Remarkable Revitalization of St. Paul.” The 2001 hagiography currently has pride of place in the Friends of the Library shop window. Price? Two dollars. Coleman quotes on miracles, persistence and good karma? Priceless.

The cover shows then-St. Paul Mayor Coleman in a dark suit with a flag pin on the lapel, in front of a blurred-out background that has to be the inside of the Xcel Center. Whether he’s looking sexier than any other U.S. Senator or a gold bust of Vladimir Putin, as one blogger later attested, is a matter of personal taste.

Here are the Coleman quotes, mostly from a last-chapter Q&A, with text bolded to emphasize ties to Coleman’s actions and strategy in contesting Al Franken’s 312-vote victory in the election for U.S. Senate:

On miracles:

David Ben Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, said, “Anyone who does not believe in miracles is not a realist.” I believe in miracles. I’m a realist.

On persistence:

We would have come up with another idea [if people hadn't shown up for a concert on the Mississippi River]. We would have brought them down the next week for something else. You have to believe in the vision and stay with it. Individual things don’t always work out. If one door shuts, you walk around and try another one, until you find one that works.

On smoke and mirrors:

[The deal for a National Hockey League franchise] was so unlikely, you almost had to laugh. At times, we were bluffing. We put together an ownership group and submitted an application to the NHL — and we didn’t have a firm dollar commitment from anybody. We didn’t have the money for a deposit. We didn’t have a lead investor until the day we actually needed one. Along the way, there was a lot of smoke and mirrors, but we knew we had the right vision, we knew it would be good for St. Paul.

On karma:

Maybe it’s my 1960s “good karma” thing that still floats out there, but I believe that the arts appeal to the better angels in people.

The book’s listed editor, publisher and (from what I could tell) author is Tom Mason, a marketing exec who earlier served as Sen. Rudy Boschwitz’s press secretary and still does Q&As with people like Republican rainmaker Jeff Larson, a longtime Coleman associate and the former Senator’s Washington, D.C. landlord.

Here’s a weird bit of trivia. If Al Franken winds up beating Norm Coleman (and he’s now got a small lead in most polls), he’ll be the fourth consecutive Jewish person elected to that Senate seat, after Rudy Boschwitz, Paul Wellstone, and Coleman. Indeed, the last time the major parties in Minnesota even nominated a gentile to run for that seat was 1984, with Joan Growe. When you consider that Jews make up only 0.9 percent of Minnesota’s population, that’s pretty interesting. Maybe these Minnesota Jewish pols are just riding native son Robert Zimmerman’s coattails.

Of course this leaves the anti-Semite vote entirely for Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley.

In short, there is no dearth of serious issues to address for those candidates who seek the presidency in 2008.  And yet the latest cause c