Archive for the 'CD6' Category

MN GOP Chair Candidate Slams Bachmann

by Zack Stephenson | 10 Comments

Dump Michele Bachmann has some interesting video of former KSTP talk radio host and current MN GOP Chair candidate Dave Thompson talking about Bachmann’s recent swine flu comments.  Thompson repeatedly slammed Bachmann for making the comments saying:

“I’m not going to defend that. A. She got the facts wrong and B. even if she had them right, even if it had happened, you know, during Jimmy Carter’s Administration, I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.”

Ouch.  But Thompson was not through.  He came back and hit Bachmann yet again a short time later:

“She can’t come out and say stuff like this.  Its harmful to all Republicans and no rational person is going to defend it.”

It truely is a bizaar experience to hear a candidate for Chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota speaking so rationally.  After four years of Ron Carey, I’ve gotten used to the MN GOP Chair being a consistant source of crazy nonsense.  This is truely a shock to the system.

May 4, 2009, 1:26 pm | Category: CD6 | Tags: .

More Bachmann Crazy

by Zack Stephenson | 27 Comments

When will the people of the 6th District tire of this garbage:

Quoth the Bachmann:

“I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter,” said Bachmann. “And I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.”

As the City Pages point out, Bachmann’s comments are not only disgusting, they are factually inaccurate. The 1976 swine flu started under the watchful gaze of Gerald Ford.

April 28, 2009, 5:07 pm | Category: CD6 | Tags: .

Bachmann, Kline, Walz FEC Reports

by Zack Stephenson | 6 Comments

Here are the numbers:

Walz
Raised - $157,000
Cash on Hand - $111,000

Kline
Raised - $142,000
Cash on Hand - $103,000

Bachmann
Raised - $314,000
Cash on Hand - $224,000

That’s a pretty impressive quarter for Bachmann, and a so-so quarter for Walz and Kline.  All three of these Representatives could concievably face serious challenges in 2010, but the reality is that none of them are really in any danger at this point.

April 15, 2009, 1:05 pm | Category: CD1, CD2 and CD6 | Tags: , , .

Bachmann bill protects us from policies nobody has proposed

by Jeff Rosenberg | 20 Comments

Sometimes, I’m just so grateful that we have Michele Bachmann watching out for us, fighting the tough battles:

“This legislation would ensure that the U.S. dollar remain the currency of the United States.”

Thank god. I was afraid I was going to have to convert all of my money to Yen.

Bachmann is so good at finding common-sense solutions to non-existent problems. I hope she’ll continue to introduce similar legislation. Perhaps she could introduce bills to:

  • Ensure that Slavic does not become the official language of the U.S.
  • Prohibit the U.S. from selling Minnesota to Canada
  • Stop toddlers from operating heavy machinery

What other causes would you like to see Bachmann working on?

March 27, 2009, 6:51 am | Category: CD6 and Misc. National Politics |

Trying to understand Michele Bachmann

by Jeff Rosenberg | 4 Comments

Michele Bachmann goes after her opponents with a fervor that even I have to grudgingly admire. Unfortunately, though she speaks passionately, she also speaks incoherently. Watching those she’s debating against, you can nearly read their thoughts: “What the heck are you talking about?”

Yesterday, Michele Bachmann had the opportunity to question Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke during a committee hearing. I considered posting the video solely for the face Geithner makes in response to a particularly incoherent question by Bachmann. But now I’ve found something even better. Talking Points Memo’s Eric Kleefeld has discovered the Bachmann Effect: He’s found three different instances in which Bachmann’s opponents, struggling to understand what she’s saying, make the same confused and irritated facial expression.

This is destined to be a classic.

March 25, 2009, 11:00 am | Category: CD6 | Tags: .

What if a Democrat said it?

by Jeff Rosenberg | 17 Comments

One more thought on Zack’s post about crazy Michele Bachmann. Can you imagine how ballistic conservatives would have gone if a Democrat had said something like that? Suppose Keith Ellison said that Minnesotans need to be “armed and dangerous” over exorbitant bonuses for corporate executives. He would have been called a communist, a traitor, and far worse.

Bachmann, though, consistently gets away with saying some terrible things. I suppose that’s because she’s standing up for good old American virtues, like pollution, greed, and bigotry.

March 24, 2009, 6:47 am | Category: CD6 and General | Tags: .

She Just Can’t Keep The Crazy In

by Zack Stephenson | 64 Comments

Michele Bachmann is up to her old tricks:

Asked about the White House-backed cap-and-trade proposal to reduce carbon emissions, Bachmann told WWTC 1280 AM, “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people — we the people — are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.”

Is Bachmann calling for an armed revolution against the government? I think they have a word for that…oh yeah…treason.

March 23, 2009, 6:41 pm | Category: CD6 | Tags: .

Bachmann Makes A Fool Of Herself At CPAC

by Zack Stephenson | 9 Comments

Cringe-worthy:

As Steele concluded his remarks, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann — the event’s moderator — told Steele he was “da man.”

“Michael Steele! You be da man! You be da man,” she said.

I really want to see some video of this.

February 27, 2009, 9:17 am | Category: CD6 | Tags: .

Bachmann Caught in Another Lie

by Zack Stephenson | 43 Comments

Most of you have probably already heard about Michele Bachmann’s disastrous interview on KTLK the other day.  For those that haven’t, the Washington Monthly has a nice overview here.  I just want to draw attention to one particular lie Bachmann told in the interview, namely that the stimulus bill was a plot by Democratic lawmakers to funnel money to their districts at the expense of Republican represented districts.  Well, Ollie Ox did the research and - unsurprisingly - Bachmann was wrong. Here is the congressional district breakdown of the job creation projections for Minnesota:

Congressional District 1 Minnesota 7,800
Congressional District 2 Minnesota 9,200
Congressional District 3 Minnesota 8,300
Congressional District 4 Minnesota 7,700
Congressional District 5 Minnesota 7,900
Congressional District 6 Minnesota 9,500
Congressional District 7 Minnesota 7,500
Congressional District 8 Minnesota 8,100

Notice two things about this chart: First, the top three districts in terms of jobs created are the 6th, the 2nd and the 3rd. Those districts also happen to be the only three districts in Minnesota represented by Republicans. If that weren’t enough, Bachmann’s own district stands to benefit the most from the stimulus bill!

Thanks to Bluestem Prairie for the fact-check.

February 19, 2009, 9:15 am | Category: CD6 | Tags: .

Tink’s Got 500K In The Bank

by Sean Broom | 11 Comments

Via Joe and the folks at MN Progressive Project, and the handy tipster who sent it in.

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.

December 16, 2008, 9:31 am | Category: CD6 |

Great Work, Bob Anderson

by Aaron Landry | 21 Comments

Bob Anderson, a name that this blog has never uttered once until today, made a serious impact on the results in CD6 yesterday:

BOB ANDERSON 40642 10.04%
MICHELE BACHMANN 187805 46.41%
EL TINKLENBERG 175784 43.44%

Who are these people that voted Bob Anderson? The IP endorsed El Tinklenberg! MPR’s Bob Collins:

Who is Bob Anderson? Michele Bachmann’s best friend.

Bob [Collins]’s theory of politics in Minnesota is if you put an Independence Party candidate not named Jesse Ventura on a ballot, Republicans win.

Independence Party fans hate me for saying that but for the most part, it’s true.

They can logically point to Al Franken’s Senate race tonight — so far — as proof the theory doesn’t stand up.

And I’ll counter with Bob Anderson, a veritable unknown who is clearly pulling votes from Elwyn Tinklenberg tonight, paving the way — again, so far — for Michele Bachmann.

MinnPost’s Doug Grow (emphasis mine):

Anderson – who had no money and only one issue (health insurance coverage for mental health problems) – managed to get 10 percent of the vote running as the Independence Party candidate.  

Funny thing, though. Anderson really wasn’t the IP’s candidate. Tinklenberg was. In fact, the IP hierarchy – such as it is – is offended by Anderson, who is seen as a gadfly. 

But when the IPs endorsed Tinklenberg, Anderson grabbed a golden opportunity. He ran, unopposed, in the primary as the IP representative. He won the IP spot on Tuesday’s ballot and, coupled with that comfortable Minnesota name, managed to win thousands of independent votes.

Here’s the kicker:

It could also be that nobody offered to give him anything. No matter, Anderson said he spent less than $200 on his campaign, which begs the question: If he’d spent $300, could he have won 15 percent of the 6th District vote?

More at MinnPost, MPR’s News Cut.

Sidenote: if it was an Instant Runoff Voting election, I strongly believe Tinklenberg would have won.

November 5, 2008, 1:51 pm | Category: CD6 | Tags: , , .

New KSTP/SUSA Polls Even More Laughable Than Before

by Aaron Landry | 7 Comments

KSTP just aired their exclusive SUSA poll, which of course in the past has been a fantastic display of polling incompetency in Minnesota. This is what they published tonight:

CD6: Bachmann 46, Tinklenberg 45, Anderson 6
CD3: Paulsen 46, Madia 41, Dillon 10
Sen: Coleman 44, Franken 39, Barkley 16
Pres: Obama 49, McCain 46, Other 3

Regular MNpublius readers have seen a lot of polls and SUSA has always been the right-wing outlier. One reason is that SurveyUSA only polls people it knows are likely voters. The problem with that, is that in 2004 for example, over 20% of the electorate voted with the same day registration process. If there is a remotely similar situation this Tuesday, be mindful that SUSA would have not polled any of those people.

Another way to look at this is to compare KSTP/SUSA to other polls. Here’s FiveThirtyEight’s breakdown of recent polls on the presidential race in Minnesota:

So when Survey USA and KSTP say that Obama is only leading by 3, how far off might their polling for Senate, CD3 and CD6?

If you’re interested, dig into the crosstabs: CD3, CD6, Senate, President. Normally I consider the crosstabs are worthy of further analysis but I don’t feel like bothering digging into a throwaway poll.

UPDATE: Paul Demko at Minnesota Independent points to Nate Silver of The Plank and FiveThirtyEight:

Don’t worry too much about that SurveyUSA result in Minnesota, which shows Obama just 3 points ahead. SurveyUSA’s polling in Minnesota has been very, very weird all year; they’ve never shown Obama with larger than a 6 point lead in their likely voter model, and had McCain ahead in the state as recently as October 1st. SurveyUSA does not have a Republican lean in general, but in Minnesota, it has consistently had a huge one.

November 2, 2008, 11:52 pm | Category: CD3, CD6, MN 2008: Senate and White House '08 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Paulsen, Bachmann, Coleman Rally With Extremist Partisans

by Aaron Landry | 11 Comments

As Erik Paulsen and Norm Coleman strive to present themselves as “moderates,” Eva Young points out that Norm Coleman headlined an “fringe” event with Michele Bachmann.

Rachel E. Stassen-Berger adds:

Dennis Prager, Michael Medved and Hugh Hewitt, conservative radio superstars who Hewitt called the “three tenors of talk,” were in Minneapolis Tuesday night to “Talk the Vote” before a crowd of more than 3,000 cheering supporters at Orchestra Hall.

They were joined by Republican office holders and candidates, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Sen. Norm Coleman, Rep. Michele Bachmann, state House Minority Leader Erik Paulsen, who is vying for 3rd District U.S. House seat, and others.

Paul Schmelzer then digs into the trash talk and extreme partisan rhetoric spewed at the event. It’s rather disgusting.

If Paulsen and Coleman are trying to position themselves as the “moderates” they’re not, what made them think it was a good idea to party with the extremists and Michele Bachmann?

Matt Adds: I just wanted to note how unbelievable it is that Coleman feels comfortable appearing onstage with someone that declares, in front of Coleman’s eyes, that equality “is not an American value.”  And that just 2 years ago stated that if Congressman Keith Ellison won’t take his oath of office on a Bible, he shouldn’t be allowed to serve.  Going so far as to say that Ellison taking his oath on the Koran would embolden terrorists… which is, of course, why George Bush’s State Department immediately recruited him for a number of good will tours around the Mid-East.  I expect this of self-proclaimed far-righters like Paulsen and Bachmann, but it is just amazing that someone who has (falsely) claimed that he’s a centrist would dare appear on stage with these moon-bats under a week before the election.  I guess you can’t hide your true colors forever…

October 29, 2008, 9:29 am | Category: CD3, CD6 and MN 2008: Senate | Tags: , , .

Avista Capital Partners Endorsements For CD3, CD6

by Aaron Landry | 9 Comments

Even though I’ve been heavily cynical about the Star Tribune, I did want to note about their endorsements for tomorrow’s paper. David Brauer points out:

In the Sixth, editorialists avoid nuclear outrage by picking Tinklenberg. They weigh in for the first time on you-know-what; Bachmann’s “anti-America” paradigm “adds to the list of bizarre incidents and statements that undercut her credibility as a political leader.”

Even though the Star Tribune has gone far to the right, nobody in their right mind can endorse Bachmann. Interesting though, is that they absolutely destroy Erik Paulsen but cannot bring themselves to endorse Madia so they opt for a “non-endorsement“ instead:

But Paulsen’s endorsement interview was disappointing. His answers on energy, health care and foreign policy lacked depth, detail and vision. Paulsen performed better at debates, but did not make the case that he has the depth needed to be a strong, independent leader in Congress.

Paulsen was a fiscal and social conservative in the Legislature, voting for measures that this newspaper opposed. Why he’s casting himself as a moderate in this race is unclear. His conservative credentials are solid; he should have run on them.

Paulsen is farther right than the Star Tribune and they’re criticizing him for not running on his conservative credentials? They even point out how he’s trying to run as a moderate. While I am not at all surprised by the Star Tribune not endorsing Madia, the fact that they trash Paulsen so badly is rather telling.

October 27, 2008, 9:29 pm | Category: CD3 and CD6 | Tags: , , , .

Survey Says: El’s Up By Three

by Zack Stephenson | 5 Comments

SurveyUSA just released a poll of the 6th District:

Bachmann - 44%
Tinklenberg - 47%

An incumbent behind this late in the ball game is in big, big trouble.  Perhaps that is why Bachmann was included on the GOP’s “Death List”

In other CD 6 news, El is up with this great new ad…

October 23, 2008, 10:08 pm | Category: CD6 | Tags: , .