Eric Black reported this statement from Tinklenberg Campaign Manager, Dana Houle, in a piece about the seemingly imminent entrance of Tarryl Clark to the 6th District race:
[My question to Houle: Assuming Clark does get in, how does it change the race:]
“It would distract us from running full-time against Michele Bachmann, which would be unfortunate, but if we have to fight for the nomination, that’s what we’ll do.”
First, what do you mean by running "full-time against Bachmann"? As far as I can tell and as far as I have seen the only thing that Tinklenberg has been doing is sending out fund raising emails. In fact, there hasn't even been any official announcement that he is running for 2010. Now I recognize that I am not in the upper echelon of the DFL and you may be doing some networking of which I am not aware but at this point what I see is a nationally driven campaign without much local support.
Second, you already have competition in Dr. Maureen Reed so I am not sure I understand how one can claim that a third competitor makes your path to the DFL endorsement any more distracting. Are you planning to ignore Reed?
I see, apparently you are...Finally, as a voting member of this district I find it somewhat offensive to suggest that choice is somehow a bad thing and that we ought to just all get out of the way and let the person who has previously lost the endorsement once and lost the general election once to try for a third time.
As I have indicated previously, I am not getting behind any candidate right now but if an attitude of entitlement is what Tinklenberg and his people are going to portray when it comes to the DFL endorsement then we can quickly cross him off the list.
As I have indicated previously, I am not getting behind any candidate right now but if an attitude of entitlement is what Tinklenberg and his people are going to portray when it comes to the DFL endorsement then we can quickly cross him off the list.
Logging you in...
taxpaying liberal · 820 weeks ago
Maybe because of that we have seen kind of a lazy last couple of months since Tink kind of announced he was kind of running. In the next few days we should see his fund raising efforts and considering he may own the best fund raising list in the State and one of the better congressional national fund raising lists it should be no problem to match Reed.
Clark will make Tink a better candidate because the only way to beat her is with a perfect campaign.
With Clark in the race at least we should be able to have a good discussion between the 3 of them and they will have to state positions. That’s good news.
I like Houle being tough. It’s going to force Reed and Clark to be tough as well. That’s good news. They are all going to have enough money to hire first rate staff as Tink already has. That’s good for the locals who work with the staffs. We should be able to learn a lot.
Political_Muse 35p · 820 weeks ago
"Clark will make Tink a better candidate because the only way to beat her is with a perfect campaign."
So, you think Tink still wins?
lavndrblue · 819 weeks ago
taxpaying liberal · 819 weeks ago
Personally I don’t think anyone can beat Clark for this endorsement race. I’ve said so many times.
I also don’t think Clark would have gotten in without talking to labor first and getting an indication of what their thoughts were.
Blue man has pointed out that El only raised about $50,000 last quarter so he is basically repeating his run from last time.
Clark should be able to wrap up the endorsement pretty quickly.
Blueman · 819 weeks ago
lavndrblue · 819 weeks ago
taxpaying liberal · 819 weeks ago
I hope El reconsiders his primary statement.
It looks like team Tink was caught off guard and may have made some statements prematurely that sounded, well less than congressional.
I’m surprised that a big time campaign manager like Houle would not have anticipated this and been a little more prepared and less panicked.
You can’t force a primary against someone as respected as Clark and expect to win the general. The Democratic base and most of the local units would react with distain at best.
I do believe that a primary race would be good for Clark as it would allow her to put together a trial run at the gotv effort and also raise a lot more money spent on positive ad’s without being attacked by the right, It would also attract media attention that would not be there before Labor day.
It’s time for team Tink to re huddle and come up with a better play. We (Democrats) need them because a good endorsement fight makes us better.
Wellstonedem · 819 weeks ago