How else can you read that besides gearing for a primary, not wanting to go on record much? Avoid a misstep, work on preparing the mailing list, mailings, and email solicitations for Phil's pecuniary purposes? Krinkie cash.
Why not? It makes sense, especially if not the likely caucus choice.
_____________UPDATE_____________
No appearing at pay-per-view, for Krinkie, while Emmer ducks public events because of his propensity to say stupid things the press notices (unlike at inner party GOP events, where stupid things likely abound, with applause even, and most importantly, the press is absent).
Is that the pattern? The SC Times item notes:
Former state Rep. Phil Krinkie said Monday he won’t take part in forums sponsored by Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District Republicans and by Freedom Club, [...]
Krinkie also suggested one of his opponents in the 6th District race, Tom Emmer, is ducking events that are open to the public and to media.
[...] Krinkie says the [MNCD6GOP] forum, which is a fundraiser for the 6th District Republicans, is the first instance he can recall of a GOP party unit charging for attendance to a candidate forum to raise money. The event requires a $50 entry fee.
“People shouldn’t have to pay to hear where candidates stand,” Krinkie said.
[...] All the Republican candidates except Emmer attended a debate last month at College of St. Benedict that was free and open to the public.
Krinkie says that’s a sign that Emmer, considered by most to be the frontrunner in the race, is avoiding events with reporters in attendance [...]
“He seems to be willing to go out and make statements and address groups as long as members of the public aren’t invited and as long as there’s no media there,” Krinkie said. “As a candidate for office, you need to make yourself available.”
Emmer’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a Times request for comment.
[...] Freedom Club has state and federal political committees that support candidates with contributions or independent expenditures.
The club’s founder, Primera Technologies President Bob Cummins, and several members of its board have been major contributors to Emmer’s campaign.
Pederson, a St. Cloud Republican, says he plans to take part in both upcoming debates but also agrees with Krinkie’s call for more forums to be held in public settings.
[...]“I don’t know that Tom’s doing that on purpose,” Pederson said. “He certainly is giving folks that impression.”
Circular firing squad? Sivarajah impresses by being outside that loop?
(It is that, or she's of little to no interest to the SC Times in terms of pursuing a quote. Hopefully her views are not of little interest to many in MN CD6 west of Anoka County.)
However you feel about such questions, CD6 Republicans, via the new head honcho, note on the web:
CD6 Republican Chairman Luke Yurczyk released the following statement following the news that Phil Krinkie has withdrawn from a planned candidate forum on December 14th:
I wanted to clarify some items related to the upcoming CD6 Victory Dinner & Candidate Forum. Prior to moving forward with adding the forum to our fundraising dinner, we obtained commitments to participate from all four of the declared CD6 GOP candidates. Like many of you, we were surprised to learn today that one of the candidates will no longer be attending the Dinner or participate in the forum. While we are disappointed in Mr. Krinkie's decision not to participate, the Victory Dinner and CD6 Candidate Forum will go on as planned.
We look forward to what is sure to be a fun, informative and successful fundraising event that will be a chance for activists to get to hear from candidates seeking to represent them in Congress. We are also honored to have Congressman ["Shutdown"] Sean Duffy from Wisconsin as our keynote speaker. We have exceeded our original attendance goal by 25% and have sold out the event.
Sean Duffy, and bet there will be tea served for all at that party. Interestingly, Duffy's [Stepford?] wife is a book author, where Amazon lists interesting pricing, including a $28.45 stay-at-home "Frequently Bought Together" book trifecta.
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Luke Yurczyk? Heading the CD6GOP? What happened? Did the MNCD6GOP run out of Niskas?
Nope, Jen's cordially riding shotgun these days. Luke is driving the car; many regular passengers included.
____________FURTHER UPDATE___________
As of posting of the above update, the Watchdog merely watches; having yet to bark one way or the other about forum ducking. So far. Keep that link in mind. There might be at least a growl or two. Over a tempest in a teapot.
____________FURTHER UPDATE___________
The gift that keeps on giving. The solidarity of the MNGOP astounds. Residual Forces:
The 6th District is the most successful CD in the state, outpacing every other district when it comes to sending Republicans to St. Paul, turnout for statewide races, and making calls into other CDs who either are not willing to or able to mount a ground game or grassroots movement to elect their own candidates. Yes I am biased due to being part of CD6 leadership, BUT I have worked side by side with people from every coalition who understand that work needs to be done while everyone else is pointing fingers. If not for the work of hundreds of CD6 activists and volunteers in 2012, Dayton and the DFL would have had larger Majorities in St. Paul. We won 31 of the 33 Legislative races touching CD6 and made GOTV calls into dozens of Legislative Districts across the state. CD6 is not the District others should be pointing fingers at, they should be emulating our success. But frankly, that means putting down the keyboard and showing up to work rather than sitting back and bitching. The 6th District is the key to winning statewide. If people from the 7 other CDs spend all their time pouring gasoline on this race to divide and conquer our army of volunteers, its going to harm the statewide candidates.
[italic emphasis added]. What? Who dat? Perhaps a different Minnesota Conservative perspective is being alluded to:
In a simple act of astonishing integrity, Phil Krinkie, republican candidate for Congress from Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District, today announced that he would not participate in so called "debates" which charged attendance and from which the public or media was excluded. He was referring to upcoming debates hosted by GOP CD 6 and the Freedom Club.
In doing so, he burnt to the ground the fraudulent, hypocritical and incompetent Potemkin village that constitutes the republican establishment in CD 6, as well as delivered a body blow of truth to fatuous, hydroponic groups like the Freedom Club, which pretend to influence but which, in fact, are nothing more than a plaything of their creators, Bob & Joan Cummins, they of the marriage amendment which set back republicans in Minnesota a generation.
It's hard to overstate what Krinkie has done in giving notice to the good old boys network (and the women who want to be in them). The shockwaves of his decision should last long after this coming cycle. These upcoming debates are a fraud and he said as much. Or so it seems to me.
Krinkie told Mark Sommerhauser of the St. Cloud Times that "[p]eople shouldn't have to pay to hear where candidates stand." He went on to note that Tom Emmer, the gum on the shoe of Minnesota republicans, consciously avoids functions where media might be present or attendees are considered less than favorably disposed to him. Emmer is a coward, in other words. No news there but refreshing that Krinkie called him out in a respectful but deadly honest way.
So --- Andy at RF, "I'll see your gasoline pour, and raise you one"? If so, this is unusually circumspect for Andy. Not approaching his usual level of swinging with a blunt-ax candor. More restrained. Nuanced. A learning curve at play (while noting in the same post Fenton's latest action)?
News from Bachmannistan?
An abdication, tipping off an internecine struggle?
Let's all wait and see how the Watchdog calls it. Poke that hound, wake him up.
____________FURTHER UPDATE_____________
The only officially declared DFL candidate, Prof. Jim Read, is reported by SC Times as welcoming discord among those of the other party.
DFLer Jim Read sees political opportunity in the prospect of a hard-fought Republican primary in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District.
Read, a political science professor at College of St. Benedict & St. John’s University, is running for Congress in the 6th District, which includes the St. Cloud area.
[... GOP candidate John] Pederson has said a competitive GOP primary in the 6th District is very likely, as only Emmer has pledged to abide by the party’s endorsement.
Read says he welcomes a scenario in which Republican candidates spend much of 2014 jousting with each other to prove their conservative bona fides.
“It certainly gives me an opening,” Read said. “It may enable me to, over the course of the summer, communicate a clear message that’s directed to the moderates that I have to win.
“The Republicans may still be chasing the Michele Bachmann base.”
 |
| For my successor, I endorse this little hummer. |
__________FURTHER UPDATE__________
There is charm to the thought that while CD4 resident Bachmann can endorse any CD6 candidate she wants, she cannot vote in a CD6 primary either in person or absentee. Any reader aware of any 2014 GOP candidate receiving MichelePAC money is asked to submit a comment. Indeed, any reader with knowledge of MichelePAC spending, past or present, in Iowa or elsewhere, is asked to submit a comment. As best as I am aware, MichelePAC since the failed presidential run has taken in money any way it can, but has been quite parsimonious in spending in support of conservative candidates, in Minnesota or anywhere else. Give her PAC your money, wonder where it may go?
__________FURTHER UPDATE___________
One online item on Professor Read, re the failed photo ID voting amendment; here. Yet another voice of reason, cutting through the smoke screen to get realities mentioned in a helpful way within a pre-election SC Times op-ed.
__________FURTHER UPDATE___________
Colbert reports. Yes, a past event, but still good evidence of Emmer being his irrepressible self. Emmer ducking press and public these days is understandable in context, as more a tactic than a strategy, and seemingly planned rather than inadvertent. Sit tight, play cribbage with Hubbard or Bob Cummins where saying dumb things would be expected and forgiven, likely a plurality thing among such friends, and let the focus-group vetted political ads do the public/press talking. Will the press accept that? Sure. It's the easy way out.
Still, Emmer is Emmer ...
And November next, is a full year away. Perhaps a "seek" dimension will move the press, in the Emmer hide-and-seek saga. At least the press can recognize a trouble-free gift if given, e.g., here and here.