Third aide sentenced to three months

“I cannot keep my name as a leader of a party that I do not believe is the best option for the voters of this state,” wrote IP state director Kyle Lewis.

With hopes high that this is the year they will finally earn major party status, the Libertarian Party of Minnesota endorsed a slate of four candidates at its state convention in Maple Grove on Saturday.

At the GOP’s state central meeting in Blaine last Saturday Saturday, Johnson proved himself the most popular candidate among roughly 400 Republican Party activists in an early, nonbinding straw poll for the governor’s race. But Johnson’s appeal among activists has been building for years, most recently through his position as RNC committeeman and as one of the lead players in an audit of the party's post-Tony Sutton finances.

Near the close of a fractious two-day Republican Party of Minnesota state convention in St. Cloud, Jeff Johnson took the dais to address the elephant in the room: the tensions between supporters of Ron Paul and other activists and party regulars.

The Zellers endorsement comes on top of nearly three dozen House GOP caucus members who've backed Bills thus far.

The Hegseth campaign also announced the support state lawmakers Rep. Kurt Daudt and Sen. Dave Brown and former state GOP Chair Ron Eibensteiner.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar has long been viewed as all but invincible in 2012. Six years ago she trounced a three-term congressional incumbent by 20 percentage points, the largest margin in a U.S. Senate race in Minnesota in three decades.

In recent weeks, local party activists around Minnesota have commandeered many a school auditorium to endorse candidates for state House and Senate races.

Earlier this month, when GOP activists in Carver County gathered to pick their slate of delegates for the state party convention in May, supporters of Congressman Ron Paul’s long-shot presidential bid turned up in droves. And once all the votes were tallied, Paul backers had secured 30 out of 52 delegate slots.