Primaries are not all bad, for had Mark Dayton not saved us from the Iron Rangers getting a bar tender up there endorsed the one time for Senator, Rod Grams concievably might have had a second term. I cannot remember the name. It began with a J.Yet this is different.
This is an IP guy who held statewide office only briefly as an IP appointee the wrestler liked, who left to cash in "consultancy" opportunity as the door revolved behind him. Is he really anything but, at heart, an IP anti-choice individual? Really, beneath the veneer?
With all advantages, Bachmann causing him to get cash from nationwide sources when he could not raise jack from folks knowing his local history, he put none of his lobbying wealth behind his candidacy, and looked upon the biggest election day landslide DFL showing in memory, if not over the life of the nation, and he lost.
To a plurality Bachmann showing.
He snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Now a sore-head; I will get in an ugly three-way primary, he says that; when no other two people have said anything to give cause for him to use that provocative chip-on-the-shoulder language, beyond a will to try to intimidate his way into an endorsement he's done little to nothing, to deserve.
Eric Black reports, MinnPost, online here:
This announcement follows the news that broke here Wednesday that state Sen. Tarryl Clark of St. Cloud has decided to seek the Dem nomination. (Officially, in a non-confirmation confirmation of that scooplet, Clark said that she "is not ready to formally announce her candidacy for Congress.")
At the time, I sought reaction from the candidates who were already in that race -- Tinklenberg, who has sought the seat twice before and was the Dem nominee in 2008, and Dr. Maureen Reed, former chair of the U of M Board of Regents. I asked Tinklenberg campaign manager Dana Houle whether Tinklenberg would enter the race for endorsement as an abider or whether he would be prepared to run in a primary if he lost the endorsement. On Wednesday, I didn't get an answer, but now Team Tinklenberg has decided to state publicly that:"El Tinklenberg is the best candidate in the field, and the only one who can defeat Michele Bachmann. He will work to earn the endorsement at the DFL convention. But our goal is to win in November, and if El is forced to fight through a three-way primary to take on Michele Bachmann, that's a battle he's ready to fight, and a fight we will win."
Of course, the election is 16 months away and there will be many bounces of the ball, but this is an interesting moment, especially at this formative stage of an upshaping intra-party contest.
Nationally and locally, Dems will want the best candidate to take Bachmann on, but also will want a unified party for the entire summer and fall of 2010, not a three-way primary that will leave the distracted and weakened eventual winner unable to concentrate on making the case against Bachmann until September.
Reed is running hard and raising money fast and it seemed likely that she would pursue a primary strategy. (When I asked her Wednesday whether she would abide by the endorsement, she replied: "Plan A is to get the endorsement. Plan B is to make Plan A work.")
Traditionally, candidates stand little chance of winning a DFL endorsement unless they pledge to abide by the endorsement. Reed's statement would be taken by endorsement hard-liners as cute, but way short of a pledge to abide.
Although Tinklenberg would have some strength in an endorsement fight, I believe Clark would be the endorsement frontrunner on the day she announces, especially if she comes in as an abider. (Until she announces, I doubt I can get her to say how she views the abiding issue, but I'll try.)
Now here's Tinklenberg apparently threatening to go to a primary if Clark gets the endorsement.
I wonder how this selfish crybaby stuff sits with Oberstar.
________UPDATE________
Hat tip to Blue Man - he flagged the fact that FEC campaign finance disclosure reports are online (with a newer related post above linking to Blue Man's post).
Wondering about Oberstar, as noted, and then looking at the finance reporting, I also have to wonder how deep Jim Deal's pockets are.
And even he will tire of the hopelessness of giving CPR to a corpse.
Deal did get that cozy Anoka County $500,000+ per acre, for a 1.2 acre parcel of raw land next to the busiest rail tracks in the State - for Anoka County's new morgue [the whistle screech and track rumbling noise won't bother the stiffs, so it's an opportune site for the morgue in that sense too].Deal, like the singing seven dwarfs, must regard Tink, Dan Erhart, the DFL old-boy net in the County, etc., properly, respectfully, so for now he is paying and singing, "I owe, I owe, so off to work I go."
And there's a disclaimer, that even with seven councilmembers in Ramsey, all male on the existing board, that image is more to represent Deal and his several family members contributing along with the former Community National Bank employee during Nedegaard-Town Center times, now a Deal employee, Curt Martinson who does not have a beard, all going to work, merrily for now, for Tink's fundraising; aka CPR to a corpse. You look at the fundraising data, and after thinking it over you can see why the ten-percent Tinkster is already talking about a primary. Desparate men say desparate things.
Closing now with one last semi-related thought, how long do you figure it will be before Tarryl Clark sends Shane over, to take care of the hired gun? The one brought into town from land of the raging Kos.
_______FURTHER UPDATE__________
As a correction of something that was confusing to me, Curt Martinson's status apparently no longer is as an employee of Jim Deal, but a few summers ago after Martinson had left the Community National Bank (the bank that had given the multi-million dollar bank loan to Bruce Nedegaard and his LLC for his Town Center plans and efforts), Dave Orrick in a series of articles had reported there was an employer-employee relationship then. The Tinklenberg FEC data identifies Martinson as now a "consultant" with Business Solutions Consulting, LLC; with this Secretary of State filing:
Deal's name is not on that filing. From all that, I should make it clear that I have no cause to believe either way whether there is any present business tie between Martinson and Deal, even while one had been published by Pioneer Press in the past. On the other hand, I have no cause to believe any friendship between Deal and Martinson has lessened. There are ties at least of friendship, as I encountered them after the Orrick reporting entering the Anoka Perkins in the lobby while I was leaving a winter or two ago, and I observed both present and conversing with each other last election cycle when Deal hosted a Tinklenberg fundraiser in his Plaza building across the street from the new City Hall in Ramsey's Town Center neighborhood.
Also I should note that Jim Deal has long been a DFL contributor and noteworthy in the community as such, so that his supporting one or another DFL challenger is not out of character and the "dwarf" thing is pure parody - the man is no dwarf in the community. Rather he has been active in property ownership and on the consulting board formed during the James Norman tenure as Ramsey's city administrator, tasked to advise on the Comprehensive Plan prior to the more recent 2008 planning. Deal's longterm DFL bona fides is clearly apparent from his having drawn ire years ago for it, from GOP operative Michael Brodkorb in Brodkorb's past MDE blogging. I have no idea how far back in time Deal's support and belief in Tinklenberg reaches, but my belief is it predates the Tinklenberg Group's activity in "mapping" efforts along the Highway 10 corridor in Ramsey.
My understanding is that Jim Deal formed his crop insurance business after leaving the US Agriculture Department in the late 1980's and has had the business headquartered in Ramsey for most of the years since its formation; and also that he owns or has owned extensive acreage in Collin Peterson's district and has remained a good friend of Peterson for years. I have seen mention of such things online from the past, but nothing detailing any changes in the last year or two. Personally, I have spoken only a handful of times to Jim Deal, without any conversation touching matters of substance. I have seen Deal reported as a supporter of Mike Hatch, and I share the view that Hatch would have made a far, far better governor than Pawlenty.
I remain disappointed that the IP Peter Hutchinson - Maureen Reed candidacy may have attracted enough votes away from Hatch among DFL leaning people to have possibly made the difference in the very close loss the Hatch - Dutcher ticket suffered.