photo: Mark Twain quotes [online].
Those taking down the Bob Olson photos on their blog sidebars and writing the race as won could be right.
The other possibility of course is the opposite.
Brunhilde has not yet sung the finale.
The north metro ECM Publications, including ABC Newspapers, publisher of Anoka County Union which is the local paper for Ramsey, reported this week, as excerpted below.
Sixth District endorsement conventions begin this weekend with Republican selection of Bachmann
Thursday, 03 April 2008
by T.W. Budig
ECM Capitol reporter
Sixth District endorsement conventions brighten the political calendar in April with the Republicans gathering at the National Sports Center in Blaine on Saturday (April 5).
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, R-Stillwater, likely faces no challengers for endorsement, local Republican officials heaping plaudits on the first-term lawmaker.
“I just think Michele (Bachmann) has done an awesome job being our congresswoman and representing us,” said 6th Congressional District Republican Party Chairman Mark Swanson.
Sixth Congressional District Republican County Vice Chairman Andy Aplikowski of Anoka County opined that Democrats are pursuing a lost cause in trying to unseat Bachmann.
“I think it would take a miracle for either (Bob) Olson or (Elwyn) Tinklenberg at this point to beat her,” said Aplikowski.
Sixth District DFL Party Chairwoman Nancy Schumacher views Bachmann as vulnerable.
“I think the voters of the Sixth are frankly quite embarrassed by Mrs. Bachmann on some of her recent antics,” said Schumacher.
“I think as long as us Democrats get our message out to the swing voters, we have a terrific chance this year,” she said.
Exactly which Democrat will hold aloft the party standard should become clearer after DFL party activists gather at Bunker Hills Activity Center in Andover on April 26 for their district endorsement convention.
Both former Ventura Transportation Commissioner Tinklenberg and St. Cloud businessman Olson have traveled twisting paths to the convention.
Tinklenberg lost endorsement two years ago to child safety activist Patty Wetterling after Wetterling switched from the U.S. Senate race to the 6th Congressional District.
Like Wetterling, Olson also started as a U.S. Senate candidate but switched to the district weeks after announcing his statewide candidacy.
Schumacher views the endorsement contest between Tinklenberg and Olson as close to being decided. “I don’t think it’s (the race) open,” said Schumacher.
For his part, Olson argues the contest is very much alive. Delegate responses have been encouraging, he insisted.
Some soothsayers have him trailing Tinklenberg, Olson acknowledged. “Yeah, and it’s a little confusing because everybody else who isn’t talking to the delegates, they’re saying ‘We’re behind,’” he said. “I’m the one talking to these people. And it’s very positive,” said Olson.
That, and Jack Nelson Palmeyer is still in the contest in the Senate race, given the 60% threshold.
So, what if pundits are right, and it is Tinklenberg v. Bachmann.
That could really hurt the Senate candidate, be it Franken or Nelson-Palmeyer.
Each is far, far more liberal than Elwyn Tinklenberg ever thought to be at any point in his life, never mind the recent waffling and agreeing with friends.
Olson has no baggage. But IF it is Elwyn out of the District convention, then when the GOP gets finished with running on his record, it could be a DFL disaster.
There are taconite tailings being prematurely allowed in paving and the potential health threat that imposes, with Tinklenberg having gotten $94,280.00 or so cash out of NRRI up at U. Minnesota Duluth with relation to promoting tailings use despite open questions over the taconite health and safety issue; i.e., almost a hundred thousand Tinklenberg Group dollars for something - you tell me what besides lobbying MnDOT; and given MnDOT apparent approvals of the stuff for the road in front of your home and mine, the GOP has that to go with $840,000 from Ramsey; registered lobbyist status up until last Christmas; and the currency colored revolving door in the lobby.
And who knows what else the GOP knows of, baggage that has yet to surface as further Tinklenberg dead weight.
All that would sour voters that either Franken/Nelson-Palmeyer as candidate might have otherwise attracted with a correspondingly decent and liberal House candidate.
This cycle, the District could be very important in its returns in the Senate race.
Those two poor guys in that race on the DFL side ought not have to be saddled with Elwyn Tinklenberg.
Each deserves better, on the remainder of the ticket, and Bob Olson offers each of them the better chance that way.
Whichever it is that ultimately is nominee, will have to worry about swimming against Norm Coleman while dragging the Tinklenberg anchor and chain, unless the pundits are wrong and Olson is the Sixth District Choice. It would be simply terrible if a weak candidate in the House race causes loss of both the House and Senate race this cycle. Yet, so far, reports of such deaths are exaggerations.
__________UPDATE__________
With the GOP locked to Michele Bachmann via its district convention today in Blaine, and with her major mantra, when not at Pastor Mac Hammond's, being opposition to taxation and earmarks [and the backroom, off the record problems with earmarks], which DFL contender would raise the best challenge?
Olson is a tax lawyer [a real one not a former IRS small-claims collection lawyer, decades ago, which is Bachmann's only taxation credentials]. Olson KNOWS what real tax reform would be and how to enact it.
Tinklenberg, on the other hand, has skeletons in the closet over how he ran the contracting and money management while heading MnDOT, with some dealings not fully in the sunshine until Strib wrote up its series that blueman highlighted. The sunshine came from the press, not the agency, where closed-door dealings appear to have been favored, something playing into Michele Bachmann's hand, as well as Tinklenberg being vulnerable to "tax and spend" rhetoric over his transit and highway spending record, while favoring tax increases and wanting to sit with Oberstar on the House Transportation committee - a place where pork earmarks originate.
Bottom line: Olson has the better background to take on Bachmann's focal bread-and-butter tax and earmark issues. Olson would not find himself in discussions in the "Who, Me?" role that Bachmann can use quite effectively against Elwyn Tinklenberg. Olson has no background of the kind that Bachmann could capitalize on in face-to-face debate. Bachmann can say of Iinglenberg, "He ran things without fit accountability when at MnDOT, things always cost far more than what was forecast because of the spending habits, and he left there to become a well paid lobbyist."
The Bachmann core supporters will be energized by that kind of thing, the GOP is best at its GOTV, moderates will find that kind of message resonant, and I have seen no signs of strong passionate committment in the DFL toward Tinklenberg to match the core fervor of Bachmann's constuituency. I don't think he can match Michele Bachmann.
___________FURTHER UPDATE___________
Blueman ran the Strib retrospective Dec.2007 - Jan.2008, and it is worth a reread. The summarizing item, with the links back to earlier posts, is here, dated Jan. 24, 2008.