Dana Houle is one of the best campaign managers in Democratic Party politics right now. He's knocked off two House Republicans in a row and was hired as El Tinklenberg's campaign manager before he dropped out of the race.
Well now he has officially been hired as Matt Entenza's campaign manger. This is a very good get by the Entenza campaign. Dana is whip smart and will be a relentless advocate for the Entenza campaign. He doesn't have a record in DFL politics and so that's obviously a disadvantage but Dana is a quick learner and can adapt to whatever political climate he's put in. Campaign's presser below the fold.
Today, Elwyn Tinklenberg ended his campaign to win DFL endorsement and face Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) in November 2010. Tinklenberg cited the probability of a hard fought 13 month campaign against another DFLer and the disadvantages the winner would face as the prime reasons.
I am annoucning that as of today I am terminating my campaign for Congress. This is obviously not an easy decision for me, but I have come to the conclusion that it's the right one. While the image of the next campaign against Michele Bachmann is certainly energizing, the path to that campaign is becoming increasingly improbable. I'm proud of our last campaign. We did better than almost anyone outside the campaign expected. We built a national support base and proved that a strong Democrat with enough time and resources could win the Sixth District.
Now, however, we are faced with the prospect of the next thirteen months being a battle among Democrats. In a difficult district during tough financial times we will be spending large amounts of time and money trying to defeat each other rather than defeating Michele Bachmann. That is not a campaign I want to wage nor is it the kind of campaign that strengthens our chances of electing a Democrat next fall.
(tinklengberg2010.com)
Tinklenberg hints at this, but I'll say this explicitly: after a grueling, 3-way DFL battle that would have been certain to go to the primary, the winner would only have 7 weeks to campaign against Bachmann.
This comes as a shock to me as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) had hooked Tinklenberg up with one of their best campaign managers, Dana Houle. Maybe I should have seen this coming, though.
I had a telephone interview with Tinklenberg scheduled for Friday. He never called. Due to my heavy workload (you know that J.O.B. thing), I just never got around to following up with Dana, but was planning to today. The reality is that Tinklenberg may have been wrestling with this painful decision since at least Friday of last week.
Elwyn Tinklenberg came frustratingly close to beating Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) in 2008. Bachmann nearly contributed to her own demise by attacking liberal members of Congress as anti-American on MSNBC's Chris Matthews Show. The video went viral and Tinklenberg raised several million dollars in a couple of days. Unfortunately, it seemed he didn't make the best use of it. Some of it may have been Bachmann's meltdown was mere days before the election and some of it may have been his campaign.
Tinklenberg is running again and this worries many. While he seems like a perfect fit for the district, something seemed to be missing in his last campaign. Instead of repeating the same mistakes he and Patty Wetterling both made and hoping for the best, he's hired a campaign manager with an outstanding reputation. Dana Houle is originally from Michigan and some of you may know him as DHinMI from Daily Kos. Dana has been a frontpager for several years now. What this means is 8 to10 million people see his posts every day.
He's also got some serious campaign chops, too. In 2006 he ran Paul Hodes' House race in New Hampshire. Hodes had lost by 20% in '04, but beat the same incumbent in '06 with 53% of the vote. In 2008 he ran Jim Himes campaign in Connecticut and defeated another Republican incumbent.
I talked to Dana yesterday about Tinklenberg, Bachmann, the district and his campaign philosophy.
