Ken Martin describes his reaction as “shocked” when he began going through the DFL Party’s finances after becoming state chairman in February. The most unnerving discovery: The party was roughly $700,000 in debt.

Martin has officially announced he is seeking the top post in the state's DFL Party.

Following an announcement Friday that current DFL Chair Brian Melendez will not seek another term, longtime DFL operative Ken Martin announced he is seeking the post.

Most of the criticism of DFL state party chair Brian Melendez in the wake of Election Day has been confined to the liberal blogosphere. The three-term incumbent could likely survive those barbs. But now a critical DFL donor is apparently making her opposition to Melendez known.

On a 59 to 55 vote, delegates at the Republican Party State Central Committee Saturday approved a 2-year party ban on 18 prominent Republicans who publicly supported Horner in the election. The vote stops the Republicans from being delegates or attending the Republican National Convention.

It didn't take long after the election night DFL bloodletting for the pot to begin stirring in the liberal blogosphere.

DFL Party Chair Brian Melendez told reporters today that the party would be launching a television ad campaign tomorrow in favor of their nominee for governor, Mark Dayton. The metro area ad buy will send a positive message in favor of Dayton, Melendez said, and wouldn't mention GOP opponent Tom Emmer.

State DFL Chair Brian Melendez says Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty and would-be GOP governor Tom Emmer have different accounts of the state’s budget issues, and the Republican Party of Minnesota needs to straighten it out.

Matt Entenza, a DFLer running for Minnesota governor, released a new television advertisement that goes after DFL-endorsed candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher with just a few days to go before the primary election.

Among the many reasons the DFL party establishment wants Margaret Anderson Kelliher to triumph in both next month’s primary and in the November general election is to finally halt the notorious string of ballot box failures wrought by its endorsed candidates for governor. The last time the DFL endorsement process lined up behind a gubernatorial winner was in the case of Rudy Perpich back in 1986. But that hardly counts, because Perpich was the incumbent at the time, a distinction he earned only after defeating the previous DFL endorsee, Warren Spannaus, in the 1982 primary.