Last week, the RNCC included U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson on a list of incumbent Dems that it hoped to convince not to run for reelection. For a post on that topic, I quoted Peterson's chief of staff stating that Peterson definitely was seeking a second term. It was a very clear, firm statement.

Nonetheless, the RNCC continued to speculate that Peterson was on the fence. Somehow, the Washington Post's usually omniscient political blogger Chris Cillizza listed Peterson as recently as this morning as on the retirement watch list. Anyway, although the RNCC continues to suggest to Peterson that he retire, he clarified again today that he is definitely seeking another term.

As I mentioned in my previous post on this topic, no Repub challenger has held Peterson under 65 percent of the vote since 1994, and he has no announced Republican challenger for 2010.

Peterson's re-clarification that he is running produced this response from Minnesotan Tom Erickson, spokster for the NRCC in our region:

“Congressman Peterson has no one to blame but himself for this speculation that he’d retire. Peterson’s fundraising is stagnant, he denigrated his district by claiming one-quarter of his constituents believe 9/11 was an inside job, he sold out Minnesota’s ag community by cutting a deal on cap-and-trade and just last week he refused to commit to another campaign. Given all this, Peterson might want to reconsider his decision.”