I favor others, for other reasons, but should Kelliher be the DFL candidate in the general election I cannot envision voting for anyone else then a candidate, certainly so as to the GOP should Norm Coleman be their offering.
Kelliher over Coleman in an eye-blink. A no-brainer decision there.
An excellent compilation of opinion and official campaign positions of differing persons, including Tony Sutton of the GOP, is published online, here. It is tightly written and informative, so read it at the source, there is no point in posting any excerpt here.
Strib, in its reporting (this link) noted that candidate Entenza had past difficulties with the Campaign Finance Board, not unlike the Kelliher situation but simpler (in my judgment, and objectively by the officlal CFB document being shorter - but quite informative in its describing how that campaign, that time, chose to deal with putting the matter behind them, properly, in their view). See the CFB - Entenza item dated Aug. 15, 2006, online here. A more minor Entenza situation in the past has been reported, this link, which references a letter, this link.
It is interesting, from that perspective, that the Entenza campaign presently appears reluctant to regard the Kelliher situation as wholly innocent error; per "inside job" language reported in the previously mentioned MPR item, first link above, again, here.
Aside from Kelliher and Entenza, Strib also reported, again this link:
In November [2009] the board said Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, a DFLer, violated the law when he used mayoral campaign funds to pay for a gubernatorial race opinion survey. The board ordered Rybak to repay his mayoral campaign $26,500 for the survey, but did not fine him.
That same month, the board told St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman to disclose expenses related to exploring a bid for governor. The DFLer later dropped his exploration.
_________FURTHER UPDATE__________
I erred. I am correcting it, via update. Previously, in error and in haste, I wrote:
By lack of any further mention by Strib beyond the three present candidates [and the fourth dropped soundings effort], presumably all other DFL candidates this cycle for governor have entirely clean past records with the CFB. Since the article mentioned only DFL candidates and in the Kelliher instance the DFL party network, I would be reluctant to infer anything about the past CFB records of GOP candidates or that party.
Well, Strib reporting flat-out modifies that. What Strib, here, further reported is:
Kelliher's fine is hefty but pales in comparison with the $600,000 in penalties levied in 2002 against then-gubernatorial candidate Tim Pawlenty. It included a $100,000 fine and $500,000 in reduced campaign spending authority. The board found Pawlenty had illegally colluded with the state GOP on TV ads. The Republican party was fined $4,000 for that violation.
Gov. Pawlenty was tagged again in 2006 for $7,150 after receiving excessive campaign contributions from nine people.
Other familiar names have had run-ins with the board. In 1998, gubernatorial candidates Norm Coleman and Mark Dayton were fined $1,500 and $500 respectively, for accepting campaign contributions from lobbyists at the wrong time.
The state DFL party incurred a campaign finance fine in 2005, when it was dinged $50 for accepting contributions from an unregistered committee.
If anyone took offense at my error I apologize. Mark Dayton and Matt Entenza share the $500 hit from CFB, each for the same thing, the campaign taking a contribution from a registered lobbyist during session.
And all that, on the DFL side, pales in comparison to the Pawlenty matter; still documented online, and readers can seek detail via this Google.
The Unalloter of the GOP and his 2002 sanction has dwarfed any of the DFL sanctions, via more zeros behind the lead digit - it being enough to absorb the entire DFL catalog of fines as Strib reported, and still leave several times the governor's annual salary in the pot.
It was massive! It was Pawlenty.
Moreover, Pawlenty was a repeat offender four years after the massive 2002 sanction. His 2006 situation is detailed in a CFB online document; this link, p.4. If there is more detail online about the 2006 situation, I am unaware of it, and interested readers are urged to supply (by email or in a comment) further relevant information, if any, of any sanctioning of currently running candidates of either party beyond what Strib reported.
Again, an apology to readers for posting error.
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One final clarification. In the body of the post I hypothesized a general election, Kelliher for the DFL, and Norm Coleman for the GOP, suggesting favoring a Kelliher choice would be a "no-brainer." My intention was not to damn her by faint praise. I have a more positive view of her than "better as an option to Norm." I believe she would be a quite capable and credible governor, possibly an excellent one. I favor other DFL candidates such as Marty, Kelley and Dayton, as seeming more progressive, to me, while being equally capable and free of any apparent conflicting interests. It is worth pointing out that the entire Kelliher situation exists apart from any regional or family interests on her part that are of concern to me.