Hubert H. (Buck) Humphrey IV, who has been widely identified as a likely frontrunner in the race for the DFL nomination for the open congressional seat in the Third District has decided not to run.

“I will verify that,” Humphrey just told me when I called him to check out the rumor.

Humphrey, grandson of a vice president and presidential nominee, son of a Minnesota attorney general and gubernatorial nominee, and himself a one-time candidate (for Minn. Secretary of State) said that while he was quickly pulling together financing, an organization and a plan to run for the nomination, he and his wife decided that right now, with two daughters ages five and two, was not the time to make the full-time, full-family, full-body commitment necessary to succeed in a campaign like the one ahead for Congress.

While there are several up-and-coming Democrats interested in the seat, many analysts acknowledged that none of the others had a name like “Humphrey” that would have translated into a certain amount of automatic support, especially if the nomination came down to a DFL primary and a crowded ballot.

“I do think we would have won,” Humphrey told me. He said that soon as Jim Ramstad announced his decision not to seek a 10th term, he started soliciting commitments of financial campaign support, talking to party leadership figures in the district and consulting his political inner circle about a plan. A meeting of the inner circle was to occur today, but the invitees received an email last night calling the meeting, and the whole thing off.

With the end of a calendar quarter approaching, Humphrey said he set a goal of having $150,000 in “hard commitments of financial support that I could put in the bank on the day I announced. and I did meet all those internal benchmarks.”

At the same he and his wife Heidi were talking about what life would be like, not just during the campaign but during the perpetual campaign that politics has become (especially when serving in the House, with its two-year terms).

Humphrey said he knew from his own childhood experiences the strain that a political life can put on families. “Believe me, I know that from the core,” he said. “And Heidi and I decided that’s not the life we want for our family at this stage. Not going to work this time. Maybe another time.”

Having reached that decision, he decided it was only fair to the rest of the potential candidates to make a clear statement now, so they can take his non-candidacy into account.