| "First of all, this district is looking for a hard worker," she continued. "And nobody will outwork me. Quality of work is also important as well as sensible leadership."
"I doorknock 40 hours a week when campaigning," she said. "Voters will know and trust me. I'll get my message that I have a track record of bringing people together to get things done. They may not always agree with me, but they'll feel that they can approach me."
In addition to her doorknocking, she'll also build a strong "ground game." She did it for her state Senate campaigns. It will be a combination of doorknocking, getting her and/or volunteers to events throughout the district and phone banking.
While she has a huge head start over Reed in the endorsement process, she has plenty of work left to do. She considers the delegates the base of her campaign.
"They're the doorknockers and phone bankers," she explained. "They are the gold mine when it comes to building this campaign and getting my message out to the voters." She sees the endorsing process as an excellent opportunity to organize.
"My son reminds me that I'm over 30 and I'll only do the safe, standard stuff," he joked. So she'll be bringing in people to use social networking tools, twitter and anything else that might arise technology-wise between now and 2010. "We need to modernize our campaign methods."
But how does she plan to counter the dirty tactics and lies that are the standard arsenal of the Republican Party?
"First of all, because the voters will get to know me, get to trust me, the attacks will seem more like caricatures of me," Tarryl explained. "And we'll fight back, of course. We'll use social networking, the blogs, emails and letters to the editor. We will also be on the radio and TV, but this is the standard way of replying."
I brought up the Bob Anderson factor. He's the guy who ran in the Independence Party primary, won and ended up getting 10% of the vote.
"It's all about the swing voters," she reiterated. "Amy (Klobuchar in 2006) won this district Anoka county (Mark Kennedy's old district) by 13%. Yet, El (Tinklenberg) lost to Michele by 6,000 (3%) in Anoka county in 2008. I need to establish me as a positive alternative to Bachmann."
She thinks plenty of Republicans and independent-minded voters don't want Bachmann, but need someone they want to vote for. The implication that I infer from our conversation is that Anderson received 10% because of the high anti-Bachmann feeling in the district that for a number of reasons, didn't coalesce in support for Tinklenberg.
"Young voters are also really important," she said. "I'm proud to have the SCSU (St. Cloud State University) College Democrats supporting me." She'll need to use all of the latest networking tools as well as the old-fashioned ones to reach enough of them.
I wanted to return to the dirty campaigning she's faced.
"They accused me of living in Minneapolis, being a lawyer, being a liberal, being a wolf in sheep's clothing," she replied. "I'm sure their game plan will be the Karl Rove game plan. But they won't be able to get away with it because the voters will get to know me."
They might even call her a community organizer. After all that strategy worked really well for the McCain campaign and Tarryl has been one. |
Sen. Tarryl Clark (DFL-St. Cloud) 
