From Tink’s campaign website:
I am announcing that as of today I am terminating my campaign for Congress. This is obviously not an easy decision for me, but I have come to the conclusion that its the right one. While the image of the next campaign against Michele Bachmann is certainly energizing, the path to that campaign is becoming increasingly improbable. I’m proud of our last campaign. We did better than almost anyone outside the campaign expected. We built a national support base and proved that a strong Democrat with enough time and resources could win in the Sixth District.
Now, however, we are faced with the prospect of the next thirteen months being a battle among Democrats. In a difficult district during tough financial times we will be spending large amounts of time and money trying to defeat each other rather than defeating Michele Bachmann. That is not a campaign I want to wage nor is it the kind of campaign that strengthens our chances of electing a Democrat next fall.
Say what you will about Tinklenberg, but he did do something that most candidates don’t — and that was to generously donate $250,000 to the DCCC earlier this year — scrilla that will be put to good use, I’m sure.
RaceTracker Wiki: MN-06
Good deal.
That’s great. Stand up move by Tinklenberg.
This makes me like the guy even more. And it says volumes about how strong a candidate Tarryl Clark will be. I’ve gotta meet her people at the DFL booth at the Fair.
As i was definitely wondering if he’d actually continue with the race. But with all the back and forth over this race and great SSP/netroot friends working for Tink, I figured it would be kind of pompous to do so.
This makes it quite obvious that Clark already has the DFL nomination wrapped up, we certainly will not nominate Reed, frickin Independence Party who costs us every gubernatorial race, and she was even on the ticket as the LG pick! There is certainly a bitterness involved and is a reason why many of us want instant run-off voting.
I will certainly second James as even actual representatives from über safe districts wouldn’t give the DCCC 250,000. Tink certainly made a race of it and certainly shouldve been our nominee in 06 instead of Wetterling (she played off poorly with voters too young to know all about her sons kidnapping.). The sentiment over at the blog MNPublius is that he’d already be a Congressman if Wetterling had stayed out.
Is she “sufficiently conservative” enough on guns and abortion for the district? If not, I’m afraid she runs the risk of getting just pasted on those issues.
That, my friends, is party loyalty. If we had more Democrats like Tinklenberg (cough Carolyn Maloney), the party would be in better shape.
A tip of my hat to Mr. Tinklenberg.
I’m sure there’s some high-level position open in the Department of Transportation or something like that? (If he wants to move to DC…) This kind of move should really be rewarded.
And ideally, he should be put in a position where he can force Michele Bachmann to live in a socialist urban compound and take mass transit to work.
How often does this happen so early in the process? It’s a good call, but it took a lot of humility and integrity.
and if she loses this race it will be because it is a referendum on her. tinkleneberg was lazy and ran a horseshit campaign. on the issues he was a good fit, but no one was ever going to find out from him. wetterling was a cipher, but not a good campaigner. both relied on the DCCC too much and never established themselves.
clark is a very attractive, smart, experienced senator who is ready to take the battle to bachmann (the way walz – another guy too liberal for his district) did.
she is an underdog against bachmann, but she’s probably our best candidate. and i don’t know how liberal her votes have been in her 3 years in the senate.