No, Norm Coleman Isn’t Coming Back

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Monday, June 08, 2009 at 10:46 am

Politico teases out whether former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) will abandon his legal campaign to aid Republican filibusters and run for governor in 2010.

“This race is wide open,” said Sarah Janacek, a Republican activist in the state and editor of a newsletter on state politics. “Coleman’s experience, contacts and donor base should not be discounted in the governor’s race. I have talked to people who are Norm’s supporters who think that he should run for governor.”

Indeed, some of Coleman’s supporters still support him. But the uncomfortable truth (which the Politico sort of teases out) is that Minnesotans simply don’t like the guy. In April, the Star-Tribune poll put Coleman’s favorable rating at only 38 percent, to 55 percent unfavorable, a serious fall-off since the election, when Coleman won 42 percent of the vote in a three-way race. And Coleman is still mired in a donor scandal that broke before the election. If you rephrase this—”Should a candidate with a 17-point net negative popularity rating and a pending lawsuit run for governor?”—it sounds like lunacy, but Coleman has benefited from curiously anodyne or “what a circus!” coverage throughout this process.

It’s quite strange. Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) didn’t win any elections in 2008, either, and he’s submerged in money scandals, too. But no one floats the idea of Burris running for another office ever again. That would be crazy.

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Comments

3 Comments

mill
Comment posted June 8, 2009 @ 9:30 am

Unfortunately for Mr. Coleman, his supporters are not numerous enough for him to get elected governor here in Minnesota. He has burned bridges with the few of us independents in play in Minnesota by dragging out a merit-less legal challenge to the election for US Senator from Minnesota. He put his own selfish interests above the interests of nearly 5 million Minnesotans who deserve to have full representation in the US Senate. That has been delayed for more than 5 months due solely to Mr. Coleman's baseless lawsuits and false allegations of election improprieties.

I speculate that Mr. Coleman is dragging this out for an economic payback by well-heeled Republicans. If he won as Governor, he couldn't recover from his growing indebtedness and legal bills. He still faces criminal investigation in relation to a campaign donor from Texas.

He isn't running for Governor. He'd be brain-dead to try, and he's not that. He's running for a fat lobbying job or some featherbedded position in some right-wing political think tank at high salary.


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[...] myself writing this post. I have never considered myself a politico. And, I do see a real chance No, Norm Coleman Isn’t Coming Back – washingtonindependent.com 06/08/2009 Politico teases out whether former Sen. Norm Coleman [...]


mill
Comment posted June 8, 2009 @ 4:30 pm

Unfortunately for Mr. Coleman, his supporters are not numerous enough for him to get elected governor here in Minnesota. He has burned bridges with the few of us independents in play in Minnesota by dragging out a merit-less legal challenge to the election for US Senator from Minnesota. He put his own selfish interests above the interests of nearly 5 million Minnesotans who deserve to have full representation in the US Senate. That has been delayed for more than 5 months due solely to Mr. Coleman's baseless lawsuits and false allegations of election improprieties.

I speculate that Mr. Coleman is dragging this out for an economic payback by well-heeled Republicans. If he won as Governor, he couldn't recover from his growing indebtedness and legal bills. He still faces criminal investigation in relation to a campaign donor from Texas.

He isn't running for Governor. He'd be brain-dead to try, and he's not that. He's running for a fat lobbying job or some featherbedded position in some right-wing political think tank at high salary.


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