Where is the other 5? If Kelliher is not your number 1, your asking to lose. Tim Penny has a better shot as an independent then 1-4.

Joe, I'm sure Eric didn't list the other 5 out due to a 'fair use' concern.

Check out 6-10 at the link he's got for you.

Three of the top five haven't said they're running. Kelliher has a powerful position as speaker, and I don't see her risking her seat for a gubernatorial run unless she's just ready to quit the House regardless.

My sense of the DFL base is they aren't filtering the same way, but are still thinking of who is an ideal candidate, and they haven't yet gotten to who can win. Besides, with Pawlenty out, considerations of who matches up against him are moot.

Mark Dayton looks good to me.

One through four lose? To whom? Marty Seifert. Not a chance! Rybak urban sophisticate versus small-town comb-over? Who would Seifert attract to the polls? Mean-spirited, middle-aged, poorly dressed men?

Minnesota Republicans have been so decimated by the last three elections that the list of candidates being bandied about are the 10 Republicans in this state that ANYBODY has ever heard of outside of their immediate family. There is barely anybody with any leadership skills. Only one has statewide experience and that's Norm Coleman, who essentially won because Paul Wellstone died. Michele Bachmann in a statewide race? Zero chance. People in Minneapolis and Saint Paul would stand in line in an ice storm to vote against her. She wouldn't get 25 percent in the state's three most populous counties. Ramstad could win, but he'll never get the endorsement from the party of "life begins and conception and ends at birth."

I would not mind seeing a Dick Day vs Chris Coleman vs Tim Penny race for Governor. Dick Day is more moderate than his party somehow allows him to be and he seems pretty fed up with the nasty polarization between parties. He comes from an old school FDR-Dem family.

Coleman seems to have more respect from out-state MN in the battle of the Twin Cities mayors contest. The voters that I know who reside in rural MN generally see RT as a guy who like to be on TV and Coleman as a guy who actually works for a living. I'm not saying either belief is true, just that this seems to be the impression out there.

I am also hopeful Tim Penny will make another run as an independant. Although he obviously leans slightly left-of-center, he is certainly a qualified candidate and would be more willing to work against party line division than Coleman would, in my opinion.