ST PETER — Nine men and two women filled the stage at Gustavus Adolphus College Monday night — representing roughly half the people running or considering a run for governor of Minnesota.

And the 11 candidates nearly outnumbered the 12 people sitting in the 44 seats that made up the first two rows of audience seating.

A hundred or so others were on hand to hear the candidates who want to replace Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the two-term Republican incumbent who’s not seeking re-election. But those folks were seated further back — maybe a little bit nervous about getting too close to a group of people who actually want the job facing the winner of next year’s election.

The new governor is expected to face another large budget deficit upon taking office, red ink that might approach $7 billion, according to some estimates.

Sen. Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, repeated one of the most frequent questions he hears.

“Why would you want to run for governor?” said Bakk, a carpenter who credited that trade for an ability to work out problems. “Minnesota is in bad need of a problem-solver.”

The stage was weighted heavily toward Democrats — there were seven with the late addition of Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, who formally entered the race only in the last few days.

Two Republicans participated, along with representatives of the Green and Grassroots parties.

After watching the Republican Party hold the governor’s office for 15 of the past 19 years, with the Independence Party accounting for the other four, the Democrats talked about returning Minnesota to previous glory days.

“I’m running for governor because I believe Minnesota can be a great state once again,” said Sen. John Marty, a Roseville Democrat who proudly reminded the audience that he was the only vote in the Senate in opposition to massive income tax cuts early this decade. “I was the one ‘No’ vote because I thought it was unsustainable. I thought it was unfair. And I thought we needed to invest the money.”

Fellow Democrats Steve Kelley, of Hopkins, and Rep. Tom Rukavina, of Virginia, also directly promised to raise taxes and suggested that Pawlenty has left the state in a substantially worse fiscal condition than he received it.

Kelley, a former state senator who teaches at the U of M’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, offered one of the few laugh lines of the night when he said he considered inviting Pawlenty to his “Better Budgeting” course.

“But I really hate to flunk students, so I didn’t extend the invitation,” Kelley said.

Rukavina focused on the plight of students and working families under Pawlenty’s budget cutting.

“I’m running for governor because I love this state and I really don’t like what’s happened to it over the last eight years or even longer than that,” Rukavina said.

Rybak extended that criticism, saying Pawlenty attempted to exploit social divisions for political gain — pointing to campaign ads that centered on immigrants.

“I was born in a great state and I don’t want to die in a mediocre one,” said Rybak, who pledged to bring the state together and said he would proudly sign legislation permitting gay marriage in Minnesota.

The high number of candidates caused the opening statements to stretch for nearly an hour, leaving just 50 minutes for questions.

Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner was asked whether she supported ethanol subsidies. Gaertner, who cast herself as an outsider compared to the lawmakers who surrounded her, said it’s wrong to subsidize the fuel considering the amount of water it demands, the limited value it offers in reducing greenhouse gases and the fact that it diverts resources from food to fuel.

“Ethanol subsidies, to me, border on immoral,” Gaertner said.

Sen. Mike Jungbauer, one of the two Republicans on hand, was asked if the state can do anything to help provide medical care for uninsured Minnesotans.

Jungbauer, who has worked as a carpenter and septic system installer and youth minister, said he’s seeking ideas about that and other topics from average Minnesotans at “Garage Logic” meetings. Those meetings have convinced him that patients need to feel at least part of the financial impact of their decisions in seeking medical care.

“When you get something for nothing, there’s no skin in the game,” Jungbauer said.

He said he would consider a government role in providing insurance for catastrophic coverage.

One candidate had a bit of a home-court advantage. House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, a Mankato native, was a 1990 Gustavus graduate.

Kelliher, who represents Minneapolis in the House, emphasized her mix of rural and urban experience and said she has the ability to attack problems while reducing the rancor at the Capitol.

Leslie Davis, an environmental activist running as a Republican, Green Party candidate Peter Roess and Grassroots Party candidate Chris Wright also participated. Video of their statements and the entire forum is expected to be available on the Gustavus Web site later this week.

Later this week, the Minnesota State University College Republicans are hosting a forum for Republican candidates. That forum will be at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Room 253 of the Centennial Student Union.