US Senator Norm Coleman is also not too fond of the prospects of an Olson candidacy. 

I stand firmly with the members of the Senate Republican Caucus who today announced that they will not support Mark Olson for the open Senate seat of Betsy Wergin.  His endorsement by the party is a matter that is of great concern to me.  In particular, given the circumstances behind Mr. Olson’s decision to not seek re-election to the Minnesota House of Representatives – a decision that I believe was the right decision – I believe the fact that he is our party’s endorsed candidate for Senate District 16 is simply unacceptable and unsupportable.

The Senate Republican Caucus has made the appropriate decision in rejecting the candidacy of Mark Olson. I understand there are other candidates who may remain eligible to run in the September Primary, and I would hope that they continue their efforts to become our party’s standard bearer. 

In the unfortunate event that Mr. Olson succeeds in the September Primary, I would ask that our party refuse to offer any type of assistance to his campaign.  While the loss of a State Senate seat is unfortunate, I join Senators Senjem, Fischbach, Gimse, Hann, Koch and Michel in the strong belief that we must maintain and uphold our beliefs that violence of any kind, whether it is in word or in deed, should not be rewarded with our party’s support, of the support of voters in Senate District 16.”

Oh, and Gary at TvM has a nice take on it too, including a picture that I’m sure the DFL is gladly grabbing for lit hit pieces.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 4:48 pm and is filed under 2008, MNGOP Reform, Minnesota, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.