El Tinklenberg has about $500,000 in the bank. This is frustrating for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the airtime you can buy with a half a million dollars. But Joe’s analysis gets to the core of the remaining dough, and that is that most likely the Tinklenberg campaign was simply overwhelmed by the amount of money they had pouring in in the last few weeks of the campaign.
It also highlights one of the problems with the netroots and that is specifically the use of ancillary services like ActBlue. The argument in favor of using sites like ActBlue is it allows for the netroots to quantify their contributions to campaigns, but what happens when you donate through ActBlue is that a check gets cut by ActBlue and sent to the campaigns you donate to. That’s why usually I’d send people straight to campaigns fundraising pages, that turn around can be a real problem for campaigns. How much of that 500K did Tink get from Monday the 3rd of November on? I don’t think it was a substantial amount — just something to consider.
But finally the most important thing to consider is — what happens to those fat stacks of cash now? I think (and excuse me if I’m wrong, I’ve got finals and just don’t care enough to do the minutes of research) he can dole out $2000 to individual candidate committees, he could give large sums to party units or… he could just sit on it and run again in 2 years. El would be 60, which isn’t particularly old for a member of congress, he’d have a lot of money to start his campaign with and he’d have one election cycle of congressional campaign experience.
We’ll have to watch what he does with his money to get a good grasp on what he intends to do in two years.
The CD6 was not much of a race until the last few weeks. As far as I remember, there was no televised debate between El and Michele; it is mostly a party id race. With a spoiler IP in the race it surely didn’t help anything at all either. The IP guy did not even really run, and got what 10%? El had the endorsement of the IP and DFL. If we could bring them voters to actually vote that way we could win the 6th even with its GOP tilt.
I hope El runs again, and that $500,000 is a good start.. If he does it would be a much higher profile race this time around. El Tinklenberg and Michele Bachmann are now household names and Bachmann would not be so likely do chicken out of debates. 2010 will be lower turnout and I have no idea if that will help or hurt El.
I do not feel that $500,000 would have made much of a difference in 2008. The air waves were plenty saturated with ads going both directions.
*Cough*
http://www.bluestemprairie.com/a_bluestem_prairie/2008/12/fec-postgeneral-reports-walz-spent-284414573-in-election-cycle.html
My apologies for not seeing and acknowledging your post.
Sean
I’d say he’d make an exceptional candidate for Governor.
There is absolutely no way the Democrats of the 6th CD should nominate El Tinklenberg again. His campaign was terribly amateur and never really pushed Congresswoman Bachmann on the issues. As conservative as portions of CD6 are, it is a winnable district if the DFL candidate has the guts and skills needed to get in the Congresswoman’s face. As cute as El’s “Helping Out” video was, (his searching for Rep. Bachmann, etc) his campaign took on the exact wrong tone. The DFL won’t beat Congresswoman Bachmann by presenting the “nice guy” alternative. The DFL needs to find an articulate and stubborn candidate who can go toe to toe with Bachmann and show the voters of the Sixth that they have a choice. If the DFL candidate calls her out a few times she will undoubtedly put her foot in her mouth again (see Hardball) and hopefully next time the DFL candidate will have a plan for how to spend the money they raise.
Tinklenberg could make an incredible contribution to DFL Senate and House races throughout the state in 2010 by not running and distributing his $500,000.00. Any other use of the money is a waste.
legally, he can’t spend it on a run for gov or any other state or local office. he can dole it out to federal candidates in $2k chunks, or he can give unlimited amounts to any federal party committee - DFL, DNC, DCCC, DSCC.
as a side note, ActBlue will overnight a check to any candidate who asks for it. Tink could have had the money the next day. I don’t think they did that…
I agree with LTSENT’s points yet, if Tinklenberg does those I think he can.
In my American Politics seminar this semester, someone studied what turn over is like in MN and what she found out was the DFL takes a lot more seats in off years than in presidential years. I think this makes sense as in presidential years, uninformed people come out and vote and while they know who to vote for president, they pick incumbents down ballot.
Id say Tinklenberg has a better shot. 3 types of people vote in off years, the Democratic base, the Republican base, and then informed independent voters, who will not vote for Bachmann if Tinklenberg runs a campaign on her stupid comments.
Where were the videos of her molesting the president? How about saying that Iraq was going to be divided up into 3 regions with one being given to Iran? And then the anti-American crap. They couldve nailed her A LOT harder. (that’s what she said) If Tinklenberg is going to run again, he needs to play to win. And I wouldnt categorize attack videos against Bachmann as dirty, they are justified if she chooses to say such stupid things.
If I weren’t so liberal and gay, I’d run against her myself at some point. She can be beaten, just don’t be a wimp.
Bachmann can be beaten? Oh yeah.
But by the time you all get your act together and put up a quality, centrist candidate who can outrun her in a race, she’ll be gone via redistricting anyway.
To a previous poster,
do you really think his campaign did not push Bachmann on the issue?
If you stayed at home and did nothing but watch the media, I can understand your sentiment. His campaign, infancy through the election, was build on a low-budget ‘ground-pounding’ organization. They knocked doors relentlessly and brought the issues directly to the voters. The major media venues did not happen until the last ~ 2 weeks of the election, when the crazy came out of Bachmann on Hardball and money started pouring in.
and to “DantheMan” - was El Tinklenberg not the quality, centrist candidate we were looking for? We pulled the election within 2 points in an extremely conservative district. While I hate seeing Bachmann win, a 2 point margin should be considered a heck of a success. Compare this with the % of how Wetterling did in 2006 - Tinklenberg’s campaign did a stand up job turning a very red district a little more blue.
This district (especially the western half - Stearns and Benton Counties St. Cloud area) is primed and ready for a DFL takeover, and the actions of Tinklenberg’s campaign, however disorganized, helped build this relationship.
Any CD06 candidate running in 2010 should heed the lessons learned from this year, and immediately establish their presence in the wake of Tinklenberg. A quick turn-around will build off of the forward progress of the last two years, rather than starting over from stratch.
Last note: any candidate who hopes to win CD06 in 2010 better be prepared for a 1+ year race. This district requires a solid campaign well before the convention/nomination.
To Poster #9: The difference between Tinklenberg’s and Wetterling’s performance is not significant. Tinklenberg gained 43.4% of the vote against Bachmann. In 2006, Patty Wetterling got 42% against Bachmann and, in 2004, 46% against incumbent Mark Kennedy in a two-way race.
Although I’m an independent Republican, I campaigned hard for Patty. However, after the 2006 election I became convinced that a Democrat cannot win in the 6th District as it’s currently constituted. I concluded that to get rid of Bachmann, she would have to be defeated in the Republican primary, which is why I challenged her for the nomination this year.
I had hoped Democrats would relish the opportunity to cross over to the Republican column on the primary ballot to defeat Bachmann. Unfortunately, very few did.
The message I’d like to get out to Democrats is that Bachmann can be defeated in the Republican primary, provided DFLers vote as Minnesotans first and Democrats second. In the Sept. 9 primary, Tinklenberg (17,474), Immelman (3,134), and Anderson (828) had a combined vote total of 21,436 to Bachmann’s 19,127 votes.
We need to join forces and stack up most of those non-Bachmann votes in the Republican column against Bachmann in September 2010. If we let Bachmann through the gate on Primary Election Day in 2010, we’ll be stuck with her for another two years, until redistricting in 2012.
I must agree that 60 wouldn’t be to old for Congress. I believe at least 23 Senators are older than John McCain…