The above screenshot is the Immelman write-in candidacy anouncement.[as always, click on the image to enlarge and read it]
I will do this post primarily by screen shots from the Immelman campaign site. Please go there, for there's much more of value.
Immelman has a first rate mind.
This is certainly so, when compared to the two major party election day Sixth Congressional District ballot choices.
Brighter than Bachmann? Sure. She's called "Dim Bulb." Brighter than Tinklenberg? Sure?
A career politician like those two? NO WAY.
The big news IS the write-in decision, which gives GOP people offended by the recent Bachmann statements and conduct an alternative.
Bill Prendergast posts a transcript and related material at DumpBachmann. Go there to read how it shows Bachmann going uber-McCarthyite, questioning the loyalty and patriotism of Barrack Obama and her fellow members of Congress. Or saying the press should do the witch hunting.
Bachmann probably thinks write-in opportunity is anti-American, although she's yet to hang herself from that rope. And Tinklenberg's operated as if he'd only want a single major-party contest, himself plus Bachmann, others need not attend.
He dismisses Anderson and fully ignored Immelman. Tinklenberg's shown he would disenfranchise Anderson's very IP ballot candidacy by falsely calling himself the
"DFL and Independence Party Candidate for Congress in Minnesota's 6th District."
[click the image to enlarge and see the false representation of his status] While his IP insider cronies gave him an endorsement, Tinklenberg's only ballot line will be "DFL." If you want to vote IP, you select Bob Anderson. It's that simple.
Back to Bachmann: Big E, at MnBlue has a post, linking to a YouTube video. PiPress Political Animal reports, "In endorsing Obama, Colin Powell mentions the Minnesota 6," linking to a video of the Powell statement, (where at one point he characterized the Bachmann screed as "nonsense"); and then here, a comment and link to the Bachmann video, plus, "Earlier this week she said she would 'put my hand on (Obama's) shoulder and give him a kiss if he wanted to.'" Gag. That's in context here.
Aside from other repercussions, the big result from Bachmann's gaffe, from my perspective is, I now have a chance to vote for Aubrey Immelman on election day to be my representative in Congress. Based on Bachmann's excessively divisive, rigid and inhospitable conduct, he's decided to file as a write-in for November's general election, see opening image.
Immelman has kept posting campaign-site news, particularly about blowback from US neocon incursions into the Islamic world.
The first screen shot below shows the top of his home page, for today, including a clip from Larry Schumacher's blog [to link, go to Immelman's page, there are no hotlinks on the image]. The second two screen shots are from within the postings, showing Immelman's primary focus on the neocon wars:
Again as always, click to enlarge and read.
Immelman's write-in candidacy is not a total surprise. Soon after Immelman announced his running in the GOP primary I requested press notices. In email, he gave notice that keeping the issue-oriented blog open served a dual purpose, news he viewed as important for voters to know, and because he had not ruled out write-in candidacy "in case something develops where I'd feel I was more than a 'spoiler'" [The quote might be a paraphrase rather than exact, but it is the gist of his notice].
I am more familiar with the Immelman candidacy that way than with Anderson's; however, see the DISCLAIMER footnote to the accompanying post touting Anderson to those who might know less of him than I do.
Finally, I hope that Rachel Stassen Berger, online at PiPress Political Animal, (or even better, one of the print reporters from PiPress or Strib), would think to interview both Anderson and Immelman for a joint report, about Anderson with his unique position of "ballot IP candidate" (while the insiders endorsed Tinklenberg), and about Immelman as a write-in anti-neocon GOP conservative psychology professor.
Having Bachmann who is widely and often reported for making a spectacle of herself and Tinklenberg who has career politician and lobbyist baggage, suggests the two mainstream party choices are flawed. And that means having two additional election day candidates voters in MN 6 might not know of is news. Moreover, blogs do not have the coverage statewide dailies possess while the uniqueness of these particular two non-mainstream choices is "human interest" news, warm and fuzzy and uniquely American --- and something challenging for voters who might think outside of the box.