Yesterday, National Journal’s Michael Catalini gave a rather depressing look at the prospects so far for Republicans in Minnesota’s 2014 Senate race, when Al Franken will defend his seat for the first time — and so far, no one has volunteered to challenge him. Norm Coleman, who lost the seat by 312 votes in 2008 after a months-long recount and challenge, has firmly declared himself uninterested in another election:
After winning election by the narrowest of margins in 2008, Sen. Al Franken looked like one of the GOP’s most inviting Senate targets in 2014. But instead, the party is facing the reality that Franken is proving to be a much more resilient opponent than expected, and his uncontroversial first term is raising doubts about whether Republicans can even recruit a first-tier candidate against the former Saturday Night Live funnyman.
“You can’t play handball in an open field. At this point there’s been no candidate,” said former GOP Sen. Norm Coleman, who lost to Franken in the 2008 race. “He’s been pretty much invisible. In that sense he hasn’t created a lot of enemies. I don’t know if that’s his strategy, but it’s a pretty good strategy if it is.”
The list of potential, formidable candidates is short. Coleman, in an interview with National Journal, categorically said he wasn’t going to run for the Senate in 2014, denying the GOP one of its best-known possible challengers. Rep. Erik Paulsen, a popular House member from the Twin Cities suburbs, telegraphed his own hesitance about jumping into the Senate race on a local radio show. Coleman touted Rep. John Kline, another swing-district Republican, but he has passed up previous statewide bids in favor of building up tenure in the House. And Rep. Michele Bachmann, who would be formidable in a primary, would be the Democrats’ dream challenger, given her high unfavorables even back home. She barely won re-election in a solidly-Republican House district in 2012.
What’s clear is that Minnesota Republicans are wary of jumping head first into the contest, despite the obvious opportunities against Franken.
In order to understand this, one has to understand the ground game of the state GOP, which has been a total disaster until recently. The state organization more or less collapsed financially in 2011, after having succeeded in the midterms in taking control of the legislature but losing all the statewide constitutional offices. In the 2012 cycle, Ron Paul followers won key offices in local party structures, many of whom have failed to engage much afterward. The state GOP has worked hard over the past year to put its house in order, but it still has a lot of work to do to catch up to the DFL, and not too much time in which to do it.
RIGHT'S RIGHT 
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Thu Jan 10, 2013 11:41 am
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