You went to the parade, I didn’t. I asked several specific questions about campaigning. None of them were you able to answer in the affirmative.

I used to see Marty Seifert around quite a bit. I don’t share the fear others have around here concerning talking to one’s political adversaries, so I would in fact got up and talk to him. He’s a good guy, and I like him on a personal level. But I never did get the impression that he was attending those events out of a burning desire to exchange political insights with me. He was doing what politicians who have ambitions for higher office but aren’t prepared to declare their candidacies do. He was going around the state, introducing himself, making his name known, talking and maybe even listening to people. I have to say, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that. I think politicians should do more of that, quite frankly. And I don’t think it’s good policy for politicians, like Seifert, like any number of Republican potential candidates waiting in the wings, and like Coleman and Rybak, to be required to file papers to do that, and I don’t think it’s the law.

Who paid for the draft Rybak booth at the Minnesota State Fair?

Your arguments are absurd and you know it. It’s sad that you’re so willing to throw the truth out the window in favor of blind partisanship. If Rybak and Coleman are not candidates for governor, I’ll eat my hat.

I guess that means the answer to all my questions except the one about Kolacky, is no. I know of no statute that requires anyone to solicit votes for anything.

“one of my GOP friends was at the Applefest parade in LaCrescent and saw Rybak with the DFL in the parade as well.”

And of course walking a parade doesn’t mean you are running for governor. I would say the majority of people walking in most parade, in fact, aren’t.

I wasn’t there so I didn’t personally see him, but one of my GOP friends was at the Applefest parade in LaCrescent and saw Rybak with the DFL in the parade as well. There were other DFL candidates for governor with the DFL unit including Tom Rukavina.

So was Rybak scrounging for Mayoral votes in LaCrescent also?

Rybak was in the Kolacky Days parade walking with the DFL. He walked around Kolacky Days shaking hands and talking to people. He didn’t talk to me since I’m not a Democrat, so I can’t tell you what he discussed. But I can promise you with my whole heart that he was NOT soliciting votes in his mayoral re-election.

Eating kolacky? But you were there, you tell us.

Did he give a speech asking people to vote for him for governor?

Did he pass out campaign literature identifying himself as a candidate for governor?

Did he come up to you or anyone you saw, and say something to the effect, “Hi, I’m RT Rybak and I would like to ask you to vote for me for governor?

In short, was he campaigning for governor?

The complaints have been filed with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board. It’s in their hands to review the evidence and decide whether a violation has occurred.

Let me ask you a question, Hiram. I personally saw RT Rybak in Montgomery, Minnesota over Kolacky Days weekend in August. If he wasn’t campaigning for governor, what was he doing there?

But this isn’t something that you have been able to prove, is it? Sutton and Brodkorb have put in so much work on this, yet they haven’t been able to produce one single piece of evidence showing Coleman actually campaigning for governor.

You don’t see any Coleman for governor signs going around town, huh? You know the way you’re parsing words reminds me a lot of Bill Clinton saying that getting oral sex wasn’t really sex.

Your arguments are completely absurd and you know it. Chris Coleman and RT Rybak are most certainly campaigning for governor. Rybak sure as hell wasn’t campaigning for re-election as mayor when I saw him in Montgomery at Kolacky Days. Rybak isn’t even keeping his aspirations a secret, which begs the question who paid for the Draft Rybak booth at the Minnesota State Fair.

Would that have changed what the money was spent for?

“there were three ways CC could have avoided this pickle. A) He could have simply filed the legal paper work to raise funds for his gubernatorial campaign. B) He could have paid for his outstate excursions with his own dime. C) He could have put off his guberatorial campaign until November 4.”

Coleman seems to have chosen option C.

No where does it say: “This money is not being spent on my campaign for Governor”

Hiram there were three ways CC could have avoided this pickle. A) He could have simply filed the legal paper work to raise funds for his gubernatorial campaign. B) He could have paid for his outstate excursions with his own dime. C) He could have put off his guberatorial campaign until November 4.

According to the Sutton-Brodkorb definition of candidacy, every politician in Minnesota is required to file for governor, the moment he thinks about running after spending a hundred dollars. If that were truly the state of the law, the list of filed candidates would be considerably longer than it is, and would include many, many Republicans.

People don’t run for governor, until they run for governor. Coleman, from all the evidence, seems to be running for mayor of St. Paul.

These, for example …

Coleman Travel

3/12/09 Midwest Airlines $619.39
3/13/09 Orbitz.com $107.88
7/23/09 Arrowwood Resort Deposit $200.00
7/30/09 Kahler Grand Hotel $452.98
7/30/09 Northwest Airlines $249.19
8/17/09 Arrowwood Resort Lodging $107.80

Coleman Meals

6/18/09 Congressional District 7 Dinner $60.00
7/29/09 Gilligan’s Cove (Rochester) $13.00
7/30/09 Kahler Grand Grill $86.89
8/3/09 Granite City Brewery $35.82

Other Coleman Expenditures

4/14/09 Mileage for Stiles $90.00
7/27/09 Mileage for Stiles $60.00

Coleman Donations to DFL Units

2/7/09 Senate District 32 DFL $50.00
6/11/09 Rice County DFL $200.00

Really? Which specific expenditure screams out to you “I’m running for governor.” Or is everybody who shows up at Farm Fest, running for governor, and required to make the appropriate filing, as Sutton and Brodkorb seem to pretend to believe?

What’s interesting to me is that none of the dozen or so Republicans who have wandered around the state over the last 8 years or so “doing political work” and who are now running for governor haven’t stepped up to back the charges. Republican operatives should really be prepared to abide by the standards they want to impose on others.

It’s pretty clear from Coleman’s Mayoral campaign finance report that he’s spending mayoral campaign cash to run for governor in violation of Minnesota campaign finance laws. I haven’t seen Rybak’s report, so I can’t say whether Rybak is also violating those rules. I do know that Rybak has been in several parades and community festivals in Southern Minnesota. If he’s spending cash to be there, he better be filing the appropriate report.