Three years after he was alleged to have facilitated an illegal corporate campaign donation it took just three hours for a jury to clear Ron Eibensteiner. Eibensteiner is the former Republican state party chair. MPR's newest reporter Sea Stachura laid out the allegations against him:

Prosecutors alleged Eibensteiner arranged an illegal corporate donation from American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida to the Pawlenty for Governor campaign in 2002.

The judge said in order to find Eibensteiner guilty the prosecution had to prove he had intentionally aided the contribution or knowingly received it.

The really weird thing about this whole case is that American Bankers admitted it made donations to both the Republicans and the Democrats to try to influence the election. They wanted the Independence Party and its commerce commissioner Jim Bernstein out of office.

Now Eibensteiner is blaming Mike Hatch for the whole thing. Hatch was a prosecution witness in the case who found a letter Eibensteiner wrote to lobbyist Ron Jerich thanking Jerich for getting the contribution from American Bankers. Eibensteiner testified that it was a form letter sent by mistake that he didn't even remember signing. Clearly, the jury believed him.

In another one of those not very surprising announcements, Sen. Becky Lourey, DFL-Kerrick, confirmed Tuesday that she is running for governor again. She ran four years ago but dropped out after she failed to win the DFL endorsement. One interesting part of her campaign may be highlighting her opposition to the Iraq war. Here's what MPR's Bob Kelleher said:

She says businesses, communities, and families are burdened by long deployments of Minnesota's National Guard units.

"We all know that our Minnesota Guard was always intended primarily for in-state activities, but that is no longer the case," she said.

Her administration, she says, will work to bring the troops home. Lourey's opposition to the war is well know,. In May, her Army pilot son, Matt, died when his helicopter was shot down over Iraq. In August Lourey went to Texas to support an anti-war protest outside President Bush's ranch.

It'll be interesting to see how the war issue plays next year... And the same sex marriage issue...ant the tax issue...and the Eibensteiner letter issue....