Longtime Republican donors Stanley Hubbard and Tom Rosen are mounting a campaign of their own this year. The broadcasting magnate and beef processing CEO are trying to get a vast and complicated web of GOP donors, operatives and activists to march in step when it comes to the 2014 elections.

Matt Entenza and his wife, Lois Quam, aren’t exactly the first names that pop up when Minnesota politicos talk about heavy-hitter political donors.

As we noted last week, all that barnstorming that Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been doing in the past few months has paid off handsomely in bottom-line terms. Pawlenty's Freedom First PAC raised almost $1.3 million in its first three months of existence, a sum that compares very favorably to the fundraising totals of his better-known Republican rivals, Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin, during the same period.

In this era of uber-control over signs at political gatherings, the most striking feature at last night’s Minnesota Tax Day Tea Party rally at the ...