Lacking a distant home state in which to pretend he's not a Republican <cough>Oregon<cough>, Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman will be forced to walk across the street to his own party's national convention:

Coleman said convention attendance is a simple election-year decision for many Senators who are facing tough re-election battles.

"So I think those who come here will have an extraordinary time. But the colleagues who don't come are staying at home only because they have tough races. If the convention wasn't in St. Paul, I wouldn't be at the convention," Coleman said.

I just don't think Coleman's being creative enough. Couldn't Norm schedule a week-long series of town halls up in Bemidji or something?

Update [2008-8-18 14:23:28 by Todd Beeton]:Seems like a good opportunity to update our Will They Go? tally. We'd already had Coleman in the "going" category but the latest is, as Jonathan reported on Wednesday, that Pat Roberts will not.

On the fence:
• Gordon Smith (inc-OR)
  
• Roger Wicker (inc-MS)
  
• John Sununu (inc-NH)
  
• Pat Roberts (inc-KS)
  
• Jim Inhofe (inc-OK)
  
• Big Bad John Cornyn (inc-TX)
  
• John Kennedy (challenger-LA)
  
• Steve Pearce (challenger-NM)

  Going:

• Norm Coleman
  
• Mitch McConnell
  
• Jim Gilmore

• Big Bad John Cornyn (inc-TX)
  
  

  Not going:

• Ted Stevens
  
• Susan Collins
  
• Bob Schaffer
  
• Elizabeth Dole
  
• Gordon Smith
  
• Pat Roberts
  

As Tim Pugmire at MPR notes, that makes it 8 sitting GOP senators who will sit out attending their own party's convention including 3 retiring senators Hagel, Allard and Craig. We don't include them in our tally since they're not running for re-election, but it is notable all the same.