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Friday, July 18, 2008

UPDATE --- GOP candidate Aubrey Immelman. Plus some questions.

Immelman: He has a contribute window on the website, for donations online, and there is a post office box address for snail mail sending checks.

He is a GOP candidate, and Anderson appears to have not retreated from his filing as an IP candidate for the Sixth District Congressional position. As noted, Anderson appears to have been the only IP candidate to have filed, and so should not face a primary ballot. It appears only the GOP will have a primary. If anyone has filed as a DFL challenger I have not seen that reported, so if any reader knows of a challenge, please leave a comment.

Immelman has been updating the site's news, see his homepage.

Here, he has posted information about his thinking on immigration. Unfortunately, he like the other candidates indicates it is problematic, without proposing any concrete solutions. Any reader believing either Tinklenberg or Bachmann have taken a concrete policy position, please post a comment and link to where that might be stated.

Saying the plumbing is broken is different from saying "I can fix it, here's how."

Immelman's website indicates two other policy/issue areas he will address in coming days.

He looks to be a serious GOP candidate, and an alternative to Michele Bachmann. His homepage news blurbs indicate a position on the war differing substantially from that of Bachmann.

FEC filing uncertainty and lack of publicly released polling numbers: Immelman, as a recent entrant having filed during the July filing period, may not need to do FEC reporting except starting for the third quarter. I do not know what financial reporting FEC requires that way. Using figures Blue Man first posted, I have also posted about the Tinklenberg and Bachmann numbers.

Anderson, the IP entrant is in a recent-filing position similar to Immelman. (Something also holding for the newly filed Senate candidates.)

I expect whatever filing is required of either of the new Sixth District entrants will be watched by the existing campaigns; Tinklenberg people watching Anderson; and the Bachmann people watching Immelman. All that with Tinlenberg and Bachmann people watching each other's FEC reporting, and doing polling which neither, for now is making public.

If anyone has seen any early polling, Tinklenberg vs Bachmann, please post a link in a comment.

_______UPDATE_________
For new readers, If I catch a typo or see an awkward unclear sentence I might rewrite that in a post. Usually, I try to keep it as originally written, with added thoughts via an "UPDATE" footnote like this one.

An issue flag I put up while discussing Lord Faris and Franken, and the Lord Faris Friday 7 pm appearance on Almanac, where I see NOTHING on the Immelman website, is healthcare, with the following what I said while posting about Lord Faris:

For me the big ISSUES question is: In reasonable detail how do you propose to fix or work to fix healthcare? Single payer government run universal coverage with insurance only to meet extended risk coverage but having no place in core coverage; or less? Do your view healthcare as a right, or a privilege?


I understand a "Ron Paul conservative" might say it should remain a private sector thing, and a Goldwater conservative might look to Reagan's nomination speech where he discussed Goldwater's dedication to providing first rate employee coverage. With globalization a related question is whether our domestic corporate operations are at a disadvantage with healthcare being employer paid, while competing European-sited firms have government healthcare programs where the added cost is not directly carried by firms operating there.

And the multinationals operate everywhere, and shift jobs one place or another based in part on such costs, and other market factors, including lax or stringent environemntal regulation. European firms with US affiliates, for their employees in the US, do the normal thing since there is no government run program. And Ford, in Canada, takes advantage of Canada's excellent universal coverage single payer system.

I hope that at some point Immelman defines himself on healthcare.

He is running against a primary opponent, Michele Bachmann, who in the 2006 cycle DID NOT PROVIDE ANY healthcare coverage for the family's clinic workers at Bachmann & Associates - and still might be doing that.

Tinklenberg is on record from the Anoka Q&A pre-endorsement session. Tinklenberg Group employees are covered, line of business, "transportation services."