The headline says it all: sixteen months before the DFL's next chance to remove our own national embarrassment from office, the race for the party's nomination is getting exciting.
It's looked for several weeks now like State Sen. Tarryl Clark will enter the race, joining former state Transpo Commissioner El Tinklenberg and Dr. Maureen Reed. The dynamics in this field are quite interesting: Tinklenberg is well-known, having run and lost the DFL endorsement in 2006, and won the endorsement in 2008 but losing to Bachmann by a slim margin in November. Reed ran for Lieutenant Governor on the Independence Party ticket in 2006, which played a factor in Tim Pawlenty's razor-thin margin of victory that year. Clark is a former state party official, and is well-known and well-liked by the activist base.
How will it play out? Good luck reading the tea leaves. Hal Kimball is looking forward to Clark's entry into the race. I've spoken with several sixth district activists, and they generally confirm Hal's thoughts -- Clark immediately becomes at least a strong competitor for the DFL endorsement given her history with the activists who will likely be delegates at that convention.
On the other hand, Tinklenberg's hiring of Dana Houle as his campaign manager has to be seen as a master stroke. This is a guy who gets it, and he has a track record of winning tough races. In addition, he doesn't mince words and he's willing to communicate directly with activists through the blogs -- this is a rare bonus among campaign managers in Minnesota, and I'm hoping it will drag Houle's colleagues kicking and screaming into the 21st century. The tone of Tinklenberg's statements is already far removed -- for the better -- from the lackadaisical tone and pace of his previous efforts. Houle's role can't be underestimated.
And then there's Reed. I'm not quite sure what to make of her candidacy -- 2008 showed us that the IP's cross-endorsement policy doesn't do a thing without the ability to put a candidate on multiple party lines in the primary, and I have not received any answers from Reed's campaign to the question of whether she would continue on as the IP candidate without the DFL's endorsement or nomination. Could she be a good candidate? Probably. Does she face significant obstacles? Certainly. Is there a significant risk of her playing the role of spoiler, depending on the circumstances? Absolutely.
There are no "bombshells" here in this Politico piece, but I'm posting it here because it shows you what the next race against Bachmann looks like to a reporter from outside the district. It gives a good picture of the ground game, except for short-changing the role of the Independence Party in the district. (By the way, I found this Politico article while looking over MPR/Polinaut Daily Digest of Minnesota politics, which everyone really should read. Regularly.)
Here are excerpts from the article, with my snotty comments interspersed.
The second candidate to jump in against Bachmann in as many days is El Tinklenberg who has ran twice for the seat, in 2006 when he lost the DFL nod to Patty Wetterling and in 2008 when he won the DFL and IP nods but lost to Bachmann in the general. He has started calling local DFLers in the past days telling them he is in.
Tinklenberg has been mulling this over since his loss in November. He had over $452,898 in campaign funds left over at the end of his campaign and has been talking to local party officials, unions and the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the national party outlet for electing Democrats to the House). Since the election he's donated over $250,000 of that to the DCCC and also sponsored the Humphrey Dinner. Previously he said he would make a announcement in July but I expect Reed's entrance sped up his entry.
Lots of district DFL activists didn't think Tinklenberg ran a good campaign last time around. To his credit he has acknowledged that he made mistakes and has said he will try to avoid the mistakes made in the 08 campaign but it remains to see what that means. He will have a uphill climb convincing many DFL activists that he will be able to run a stronger campaign this time around.
A third candidate is said to be considering the race. I haven't been able to confirm this but it is rumored to be Sen. Tarryl Clark. Whoever ends up the nominee will have a tough race ahead if we are going to dump Bachmann and I think these thoughts hold whoever it is. In addition it's extremely important that whoever wins the DFL nod articulates a clear, positive case for why they should be elected to Congress not just rely on being the anti-Bachmann.
In my previous post on what went wrong in the Third district race in 2008, I left out a few things -- namely, what factors are working in favor of making a strong challenge to Erik Paulsen in 2010. But there were other things too, and I think they merit further discussion -- which can be found after the break.
My conclusion, which is way down at the bottom of the post, is this: we need to tone down the hangings-in-effigy of Ash Madia's staff and consultants, because there are more concrete issues that call for some real critical thinking first.
With the year ending and year end reviews pilling up I figure it's time to look at the aftermath of this years house races and see how things look going forward.
The races in the eight Minnesota congressional districts from the last two years can be roughly divided into 4 categories;
1 - Incumbents holding steady or strengthening their position: congressional districts 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 in 2008, congressional districts 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8 in 2006.
2 - Open seats - CD3 in 2008, CD5 and CD6 in 2006.
3 - That rare instance when an incumbent loses a reelection bid which happened in CD1 in 2006.
Elwyn Tinklenberg, the 2008 DFL nominee for Congress in Minnesota's 6th district, has almost half a million dollars left over from his unsuccessful campaign.
When I first read the figure (which is actually about $483,000) my eyes popped -- what the hell was Tink doing with all the money left over?
Then I remembered Congresswoman Bachmann's eleventh-hour idiotic gaffe about getting the media to "look into" whether members of Congress are "pro-America" or "anti-America" and her subsequent efforts to walk her own comments back by saying they were misinterpreted or some crap. That gaffe caused $1.5 million to flood Tinklenberg's coffers at the last minute, in an effort to do away with the inane idiocy that is Michele Bachmann's role in public life.
Once I remembered that, I settled down a bit, but it's still a bit upsetting. I settled down because it became evident that Tinklenberg literally might not have been able to spend all that money even if he wanted to do so. However, if he or any other candidate in a high-profile race had had that money say, six weeks earlier, I bet their campaign staff would have no problem finding ways to put it to good use that may or may not make up, say, three points?
This is one of the minor downsides to small-dollar fundraising online. It's an opportunity to involve tremendous numbers of people in the political process, but the Netroots are fickle sometimes. It takes a random event like Michele Bachmann opening her reactionary McCarthyite mouth to bring that money in, but if it had been available earlier as seed money, we might not have to deal with her in the next Congress.
All in all, I think the growth of online fundraising is a positive thing for our political process. But there are shining examples like this one that are simply forehead-slapping "d'oh!" moments.
I'll make some calls on this story, see what else I can find out.
The breadth and depth of President-elect Barack Obama's victory last week is still resonating across America.
But here in Minnesota, something didn't go quite right -- we had several competitive races at the federal level, two of which resulted in frustrating losses and another which is still being figured out. The DFL won five state legislative races, but lost three others, gaining just two seats in their quest for a veto-proof majority.
It's become clear that Democratic campaigns in Minnesota underperformed the rest of the country -- but why?
The U.S. Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken is still outstanding, with an extremely tight margin and an upcoming recount. But the races in the Third and Sixth districts were expected to be much more competitive than they ended up being -- so what went wrong?
The Sixth is easy. A quirk in Minnesota election law prevented the Independence Party's endorsed candidate -- DFLer El Tinklenberg -- from appearing on two parties' lines in the Sept. 12th primary. As a result, an unknown candidate filed on the IP line, spent next to nothing on his campaign. That candidate ended up getting 10% on Tuesday, plenty more than the three-point margin between Tinklenberg and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who will no doubt return to her twice-a-year trend of opening her mouth at inopportune times.
Should Minnesota allow candidates to appear on more than one party's primary election line? Good question. Perhaps only in the scenario where a candidate has been cross-endorsed by multiple parties? Clearly, someone was playing games with the Sixth district race.
The DFL's problems in the Third were, surprisingly, similar, albeit with different candidates and trends. In short, Republican Erik Paulsen's attack on Ashwin Madia alleging that he was a liar on taxes worked. It doesn't matter that it was a cherry-picked, half-true almost-smear, it just flat-out worked. In this effort, KSTP made themselves an accomplice by badly screwing up a fact check and asserting that some negative ads were coming from Madia's campaign when they actually came from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. When KSTP gave these ads a failing grade on the truth test, it reinforced Paulsen's "Madia is a liar" frame.
But the issue is deeper than that too. Negative ads in a two-way race have a predictable effect. Some voters decide to whom their vote goes based on whom they like more. Some decide based on whom they hate less. Negative ads reinforce one side of that equation. But with a third-party candidate, that equation gets imbalanced. Paulsen's "Madia is a liar" attack forced Madia to respond in kind -- but against the backdrop of Independence Party candidate David Dillon's presence and KSTP's brutal misconceptions and refusal to publicly correct themselves, Madia's counterattacks fell on deaf ears.
Worse, it appears that the back-and-forth between Madia and Paulsen drove some DFL-leaning voters into Dillon's column on election day. In Anoka, which (somewhat surprisingly, I might add) has a 50-percent Democratic performance index, a solid 14% of the vote went to Dillon, with 45% to Paulsen and just 40% to Madia.
Bob Collins' theory holds up under empirical investigation: Independence Party candidates in tightly contested races mean Republicans win. Tim Penny, Peter Hutchinson, Bob Anderson, David Dillon...here's to hoping that Dean Barkley breaks the trend. In Dillon's case, based solely on vote totals, it may not have mattered -- even splitting Dillon's votes 8-2 for Madia would have produced a 51-49 win for Paulsen -- but his presence on the ballot allowed Paulsen to fight from the uphill position, playing games with DFL-leaning voters and muddying the contrasts between himself and his real opponent, Madia.
I'm still breaking down some of the precinct-level and city-level numbers, but I may ask our resident mapping guru Jeff Rosenberg to take a stab at producing some illumination on Tuesday's results.
As reported by KSTP just now on the 9 o'clock news. That seems to agree with the 47-44 result found by SurveyUSA this week, and is a further sign of trouble for Michele Bachmann in her bid for reelection.
I've been fascinated and humbled by the response to the blogosphere's efforts to push back against Michele Bachmann's lunacy with financial support for the Democratic candidates facing her and her enablers. Since Friday, we've raised almost $900 on MNCR's Blue Majority MN page alone for El Tinklenberg, Ashwin Madia, Steve Sarvi, and Al Franken.
Tinklenberg is in a toss-up dead heat with the Real Congresswoman of Genius. Madia is leading Republican Erik Paulsen in the polls. Sarvi has a shot against John Kline, and Al Franken is now consistently leading incumbent Republican Norm Coleman by about three points, including a 39-36 lead in today's Minnesota Poll -- can you help them close the deal? You can use the form below to make a secure donation through ActBlue.
If we all do our part, we can make something amazing happen on November 4th.
(I've been writing several posts over the last 24 hours about Michele Bachmann, but Populista has provided us with a great summary of her insanity and the degree to which she's embarrassed Minnesota and America. - promoted by Joe Bodell)
Michelle Bachmann has turned into quite a hot topic here in the netroots after her disgraceful performance on Hardball that that you can watch for yourself here.
It's hard to even begin on how horrifying that McCarthyesque, hateful interview was. But a lot of us Minnesotans have known about Michelle Bachmann and her hateful, extreme ways for years. Thankfully we've got a real shot at beating her this year, and you can help send her and her hateful brand of politics packing. Keep reading to find out how!
On the October 17 episode of MSNBC's Hardball, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota claimed that Barack Obama and other members of Congress share anti-American views.
Bachmann thinks that anyone who disagrees with her personal political agenda is unpatriotic. But she is the one who has a lot to learn about what it means to love America.
Her fellow members of Congress need to take a stand and tell Michele Bachmann that her disgusting accusations have no place in our country. Tell Congress to censure Rep. Bachmann.
Sign up, support the grassroots movement, and again -- click here to donate to El Tinklenberg so we can do away with the national embarrassment named Michele Bachmann.
Since Michele Bachmann insinuated in a Hardball interview that McCarthyism wasn't so bad, El Tinklenberg has been the beneficiary of a groundswell of fundraising support through ActBlue -- to the tune of $60,000 so far today.
It now appears that Republican presidential nominee John McCain has spent his sputtering campaign's last few coppers on a flood of robo-calls looking to smear his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, in several states -- Minnesota included.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has condemned the move -- one has to wonder if Minnesota's Norm Coleman, currently struggling against Democratic opponent Al Franken, will do the same. We have to imagine he won't: the Franken campaign noted in a press release today that Coleman's latest ad directly contradicts his own stated position on congressional pay increases.
While we're on the topic, will Erik Paulsen denounce the glossy mailer sent by the Republican Party of Minnesota this week to households across the Third district making truly truthy claims against Democratic nominee Ashwin Madia? I doubt it.
Will Bachmann apologize for lying about El Tinklenberg's positions immediately after he states them in a public debate?
Folks, this is the mark of a desperate set of political figures. McCain, Coleman, Paulsen, Bachmann -- all are either endangered (Bachmann is up by 4) or down in the polls by significant margins. The Republican Party is headed for massive losses up and down the ballot, and these figures are looking more and more desperate as we get closer to Election Day.
Minnesota and America will be better off for it when they lose and Barack Obama, Al Franken, Ashwin Madia, and (I hope, at least) El Tinklenberg) head to Washington to clean up the mess caused by too much deregulation, too many tilted-toward-the-super-rich tax cuts, too much Republican stewardship of the federal government.
Unfortunately, while we're at it, we have to deal with ridiculous smears and those who benefit from Republicans' work in Washington throwing as much money and mud as they can at the Democrats running against their friends. If they can't win, they're doing their best to give themselves a reason to challenge the legitimacy of Democratic victories.
Enough. Three Wednesdays from now, we'll be able to leave that behind us and get down to the business of fixing America and the world. Just ignore the robocalls, ignore the smears, hit the road, knock on doors, get out the vote, and do your part to make sure we don't just win, we win by a couple of touchdowns.
