I spent an little over an hour with Pat Anderson this last Saturday when she came as a candidate for Governor to the SD45 coffee meet up at Mountain Mudd in Maple Grove. We have these every two weeks and most of the Republican candidates have come to talk with SD45 members. It was a great talk and very early on in the conversation, Pat brought up the subject of Norm Coleman. She said that she was almost certain that Norm would be making a move towards a run for Governor and that things would probably start shaking up on the Republican side this week.

That same night in SD15, up St. Cloud way, Norm Coleman made an well-attended appearance and did not exactly deny making a run for the governor as Gary Gross reported here.

Fast-forward to tonight. I returned home from a meeting with Mitch Berg, Nancy LaRoche and Kevin Ecker talking over some True North ideas for the upcoming year at Keegan's. I opened my e-mail and found an invitation to join the Pat4Auditor Facebook and Twitter pages from a few mutual friends. Maybe this is the shake up Pat was talking about? This certainly is not a carry over site from the 2006 race. I joined the Facebook page a few minutes ago and was the 24th person to join, and after checking back after writing this graph, it's double that. So this is unfolding in real time tonight.

There is also a link to Pat's Website - patandersonforauditor.com. It's not live yet, but this does not look like anything other than the real thing. Add to that there is also this Linked in page. I'm sure we'll know by tomorrow morning if this is definite by way of an announcement. Let's assume Pat is running for Auditor now. Good for her, I wish her the best.

That said, a few things will now happen. For one, the Liberty/Ron Paul/Libertarian leaning supporters will shift. They were pretty evenly split between Tom Emmer and Pat Anderson with both camps planning to jump to whichever candidate remained once the other got out of the race. So look to see Tom Emmer's supporters to increase substantially by tomorrow. This will make the GOP governor's race essentially a two man race with very little slices of pie left to take, so I'd imagine David Hann will look seriously at his SD42 senate seat that is also up for challenge in November and evaluate how long he can stay in the governor's race.

This also changes the game for Jeff Wiita and Randy Gilbert who have been working hard for the GOP side State Auditor's contest. If I were a betting man, I would put it all on Pat sucking the oxygen out of their campaigns as it will now, let's face it, become a much more exciting catfight type race in "Bulldog Anderson" vs. "Rebecca Who".

Lastly, there's the Norm factor. Last Saturday Pat was pretty confident not only that Norm would get in the race soon, but that he would also stay in regardless of winning the endorsement. I hope not on both counts. And from talking to many delegate and alternate friends from around the state, I feel confident saying Norm does not have the slightest chance of winning the primary. And even if he did, he will have very thin grassroots support for a campaign. Much more so than in 2008 against Franken. The conservative activists are just not there for Coleman. He simply made too many wrong votes in our minds, and these are the folks who supply the energy in grassroots activism. They definitely could not support him with that 2002 campaign gusto again, especially after the last year of epic increases in government power and spending. The game has changed. And tonight it looks like the players have too.

UPDATE: Press conference tomorrow:

The Pat Anderson for Governor Campaign will hold a press conference tomorrow, January 12, at 10 AM in Room 181 of the State Office Building. Pat will make a significant announcement affecting her campaign.
What: Pat Anderson for Governor Campaign Press Conference
When: 10 AM Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Where: Room 181 State Office Building

Cross-posted at Freedom Dogs. Comments welcome.