Saying she is “firmly ensconced in the private sector,” former Minneapolis City Council president Jackie Cherryhomes told us today she is not considering a run for mayor.

Cherryhomes, who served on the council from 1990 to 2002 and now lobbies City Hall for a number of clients, including developer and former council colleague Steve Minn, took issue with our Monday post suggesting that she was considering a return to government service. When we noted that reliable sources had suggested that she was thinking about a mayoral candidacy, the longtime Northside power broker denied anything was afoot. “The only reliable sources,” she said, “are my husband, my parents, and maybe my daughter.”

Carlson and Friends Fire Back
Meanwhile, we received a broadside of criticism today from members of Bob Olson’s 6th District congressional campaign, who accused us of “slandering” the good name of local political operative Nikki Carlson.

In a Sept. 16 opinion piece on Elwyn Tinklenberg’s entry into the 6th District race, we mentioned that DFL hopefuls Bob Hill and Bob Olson would likely be reconsidering their candidacy in the wake of the former MnDOT commissioner’s announcement. We also opined on that occasion that Carlson had urged Olson to challenge Hill, who earlier had dumped her as his campaign manager.

“There are three parts to this allegation, none of which are true,” Carlson wrote in an e-mail that landed in our e-mail box this afternoon. It had been forwarded by Mary Turck, editor of the Twin Cities Daily Planet, which also carries our commentary. Carlson did not elaborate.

That was followed by a more emphatic rant by another Olson volunteer, Tom Beckfeld (another refugee from the Hill campaign), who called our analysis of the situation “false to the point of slander” and added that he was “personally involved in this story and helped recruit Olson for the 6th.”

Beckfield went on to question why Olson would listen to Carlson in the first place: “It’s a big stretch to suggest the [sic] Olson is somehow motivated to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money and turn his life upside down to run in the 6th because he seeks vengeance for a woman he didn’t even know until June of this year several months after she left the Hill campaign.”

Finally, we heard from David S. Day, a Senate District 48 director and another Olson volunteer. Day called for a “retraction and apology,” lamenting our “slanderous and unsubstantiated claims regarding Nikki Carlson,” which he said were “preposterous and shameful on their face.” He went on to vaguely threaten various “further action” against the Daily Planet, including notifying the organization’s financial supporters of its editorial lapses.

While it is refreshing to see such passion among local political partisans, we would simply remind our critics that the analysis we humbly offer here at The Observer is nothing more than our opinion. If it appears to some to be “preposterous and shameful,” it may appear to others to be completely rational. That’s what makes political dialogue so interesting (and often incendiary). It’s called free speech.