Minnesota Update

Minnesota: Mike Ciresi officially announced his entry into the Senate race to replace Norm Coleman this morning:

Ciresi talked about growing up in a working class St. Paul family, and going on to secure a $6 billion settlement from tobacco companies for the state of Minnesota.

He says those values will help him fight for the middle class, which he says is getting squeezed.

No news yet on a webpage, but when you go to MikeCiresi.org or CiresiForSenate.org, you get forwarded to a replica of his Wikipedia page. Go to CiresiForSenate.com and you get a simple "Hello World." message. The Guru will keep an eye out if any or all of these become the official page.

Meanwhile, almost one-third of Norm Coleman's Q1 take was from PACs, $470,000 of his $1.53 million haul. This included the maximum $10,000 contributions allowable under law from the corporate PACs of Eli Lilly & Co., International Paper, the National Federation of Independent Businesses and U.S. Bancorp. It's helpful to see where Norm Coleman's bread is buttered.

UPDATE (12:01pm): David Strom, President of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota and one of the three names the Guru posited as hypothetical, Club-for-Growth-style primary challengers to Norm Coleman, responds with a tone somewhere between flattery, incredulity, and eye-rolling... OK, heavy on the eye-rolling. C'mon Mr. Strom. As MNCR says, "Give it a whirl!"