The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that an interesting name has popped up among the people being speculated about as Republican candidates for governor of Minnesota, now that incumbent Republican Tim Pawlenty isn’t running again: Former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman — the man who is still litigating his defeat against Al Franken in the photo-finish 2008 Senate race.
David Strom, a senior fellow at the state’s conservative Minnesota Free Market Institute think tank, seemed to take the idea seriously and said that running for governor could be an “attractive prospect” for Coleman. If Norm Coleman had not come out ahead on the first [vote tally] … I think the political fallout would have been quite significant,” said Strom — but since Coleman had at some point been seen as the likely winner, he could potentially be able to salvage the situation.
If this sounds absurd, consider just how many phases this man has had in his political life. In college, he was a left-wing campus radical. He went on to become a liberal Democratic politician — then became a Republican, and lost the 1998 gubernatorial race to a pro-wrestler. He came back in 2002, by getting elected to the Senate over Walter Mondale after the death of Paul Wellstone. And if his lawsuit against the Senate election results proves nothing else, it shows just how persistent he has always been.
This does invite some obvious questions. While a Coleman candidacy could have a clear draw for the state’s Republican base, how would he make up for the fact that current polls say that everyone else in Minnesota wants him to finally concede defeat? And the longer this current lawsuit goes on — that is, if Coleman tried to take it into federal court after the state Supreme Court issues its widely-expected ruling against him — would he even leave himself time to build up a gubernatorial campaign, too?
And then there’s the whole matter of the ongoing federal investigation that a wealthy donor, Nasser Kazeminy, allegedly conspired to funnel money to Coleman back when he was a Senator. If that’s still hanging over his head, it would be difficult to get a campaign off the ground in the Upper Midwest, a region that has prided itself on a reputation of clean politics.
Quite understandably, Norm himself has yet to give any real comment on a possible gubernatorial run. We’ll find out in the coming weeks or months whether he throws his hat in — perhaps after a final defeat in the Senate race — or rules it out.
