Republican Norm Coleman said he decided not to run for governor Friday night after dinner with his family. "We went through the pros and cons and said we have got to sort this out," he said in an interview. "I thought about it a lot and prayed about it....There were no burning bushes. I didn't get a clear sign of what to do. So, I thought the next best source would have been to talk to my wife." Coleman, a former U.S. Senator who lost his seat to Democrat Al Franken after a protracted battle, said he thought he would have won a Republican primary and there was "no question" that he would have considered running in one. But, he said, he would only do that after working for the party's endorsement and he just didn't have the time or organization to do so. "I came to the conclusion that I believe I could win a primary...but I also believe that it was important to work the process. You have to work it," he said. "I simply could not walk away from what I'm doing...and tell folks hey, 'I'm leaving for ten months to run for governor.' I can't do it. I can't do it for my family. I can't do for the folks that I've been working with...as much as I wanted to do it. I believe I offered the skill set that could produce both a victory, and more important, the ability then to govern in tough times but the practical side -- the timing just doesn't work. " He acknowledged that some activists pleaded with him not to run but "there were just as many or more pleading with me to run," he said. Coleman acknowledged that he and some of his supporters are still tired from the Senate battle, which ended eight months after the 2008 Election Day. "Is there some fatigue there. I think there is," he said. "Would it be a challenge having been in the meat grinder for so long and so recently? Yeah, it would have been." He said he had no doubt he could have raised the money to run -- he has a list of about 70,000 donors -- and that he would have offered a consensus-building style to the race. "The solutions aren't necessarily my way or the highway," he said. He said some Republican activists disagree with that approach but he some would swing his way. "Enough of them get very pragmatic," he said. Coleman, who got 42 percent of the vote in the 2008 Senate race, said if the political environment two years ago been like the environment now, "I don't believe the election would have been close." "In many ways, Obama has been the best friend to our side," he said. The challenge for Republicans, he said, is to convert anger into constructive solutions. He said he believed he could have done that. Coleman Monday held off on endorsing anyone else running for governor but left open the possibility that he may before the party endorses in April. "I haven't picked a time on that," he said.