Well, strictly speaking, Coleman isn’t running for governor. He hasn’t announced his candidacy. He isn’t saying he is running for governor. He doesn’t have a gubernatorial website. No law that I am aware of restricts mayoral candidates to city limits. Didn’t Ms. Ng have a fundraiser in Inver Grove Heights.

I think lots of politicians around the state have thought about running for governor from time to time. I think lots of politicians don’t confine themselves to the boundaries of their constituencies. If they didn’t, they could never hold sessions of the legislature in St. Paul. Giving a speech in Rochester is not running for governor. Showing up at Farm Fest is not running for governor. Running for governor is running for governor, and you can search the posting above as carefully as you want, and nowhere in it will you find Coleman actually doing that.

I think the laws should be strictly followed. If you’re running for governor and you spend over $100, you have to register a committee under the laws of our state. Clearly, Rybak and Coleman aren’t campaigning for re-election as mayors in Rochester, Alexandria, at Farmfest, etc.

Read the statute. Carefully. Is Coleman campaigning for governor? Did he give a speech saying “I am running for governor, please vote for me.” Despite the GOP’s exhaustive and exhausting research, they were able to produce no such statement. Does he have a website? Google reveals none. It’s true, lots of people think he should run, and think he would be a great governor. Republicans, for some reason, have provided lots of evidence of that. But the Teamsters and whoever, cannot make the decision to seek office for Coleman. No action of theirs can make the decision to seek higher office on Coleman’s behalf.

Like many of my Republican friends, I am a strict constructionist, and I think laws should be strictly construed. The other night, I paid a hundred bucks to attend a political event. While there, I talked some politics, “did some political work”. One day I may run for governor. Am I in violation of the law for not creating a campaign committee? I really don’t think so.

I do give Hiram credit for being one of the last remaining liberal trolls on MDE, With the repeated failures of Obama, and the fact that unallotment had been proven a success, the rest of the progessive chorus has thrown up the white flag.

Sutton and Brodkorb have established an open and shut case agains CC. CC epitomizes the DFL’s cry for raising taxes. Chris Coleman oversees a St. Paul city budget in the hundreds of million, yet he can’t even see to it that $2,000 of his own campign expenses are paid for in a lawful way.

It’s time for Chris Coleman to withdraw from the mayoral race. Let the DFL replace him with someone who as an ounce of credibililty.

How Hiram might respond: “The Slaughterhouse cases do provide Coleman the right to travel. Does the GOP really want to set that a policy that restricts Evan Ng from traveling? Until it has been proven that all of the other candidates have not violated campaign finance laws, we should not be talking about this. Candidates do have the right to talk about the Vikings.”