Susan Gaertner

Home: White Bear Lake

Current position: Prosecutor

Experience: Ramsey County attorney since 1994 after 14 years in public and private law practice.

How does she break out of the pack? U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a former Hennepin County attorney, showed that a strong county prosecutor is electable statewide. Gaertner says she is the only candidate in the race with “executive experience running a multimillion-dollar, nonpartisan public office.”

Margaret Anderson Kelliher

Home: Minneapolis

Current position: Speaker of the House

Experience: A House member since 1998, she has held the top House office — the second-most-powerful post in state government — for the past three years.

How does she break out of the pack? She already has. As speaker, Kelliher has been the highest-profile Democrat in state government and may be the party’s best-known candidate. She has proved to be a calm, even-tempered leader who can work with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, but she also is an effective advocate for mainstream DFL policies. She has gone toe-to-toe in negotiations with Pawlenty but stumbled a bit this year when he outmaneuvered DFLers and balanced the state budget on his own.

Pat Anderson

Home: Dellwood

Current position: President of the Minnesota Free Market Institute, a conservative think tank.

Experience: The former Eagan mayor and city council member was elected state auditor in 2002, a post she lost in the 2006 election. Pawlenty appointed her state employee relations commissioner in 2008, a job she eliminated by merging her agency with the Finance Department. She’s also a former business owner.

How does she break out of the pack? She’s the only woman in the Republican race, but that may change soon. Anderson says she has executive experience in both the public and private sectors that most of her legislator rivals lack. “I’ve downsized government twice,” she said, referring to merging one agency and trimming the auditor’s staff.

State Rep. Laura Brod, of New Prague, postponed her exploratory campaign for health reasons last month, but supporters predict she will return to the race soon. The lead Republican on the House Taxes Committee, she is an advocate for small businesses and downsizing state government. She’s the candidate some Democrats fear most.

Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau, of Lafayette, has said it’s unlikely she would run for governor, but she hasn’t ruled it out. She plans to decide this summer. Some Republicans are talking about her challenging U.S. Rep. Tim Walz in the 1st District.

DFL state Sen. Tarryl Clark told me today that she’s considering a run for governor in 2010. She said she’s looking at her options but said she’s concerned that none of the DFL candidates are from the “growth areas” of the state.

Scheck also has his list of potential gubernatorial candidates. Of the 20 Republicans who have not ruled out runs, 1/4 of them are female candidates (Laura Brod, Pat Anderson, Michele Bachmann, Carol Molnau, and Michelle Fischbach). Of the 12 DFLers running, considering, or at least not saying no, 1/4 of those are women as well (Susan Gaertner, Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Tarryl Clark).

Minnesota has never elected a woman governor, and now we have a 1 in 4 chance of making it happen. I couldn’t be more excited.

WoMN Focus will be watching every step of the way.