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.
Last October, Representative Michele “Crazy as Steve King” Bachmann (MN-06) disgraced herself on “Hardball” and sparked a ridiculously successful fundraising drive for her Democratic opponent, El Tinklenberg. I was impressed by the enthusiasm and kicked in a few bucks for Tinklenberg myself, but I was dismayed to see bloggers continue to help him raise money even after he’d raised more than $750,000 and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had promised to spend an additional $1 million in his district. Within a few days of Bachmann’s notorious comments, Tinklenberg had more money than he needed to run a solid media and GOTV campaign during the final two weeks before the election.
Instead, the fundraising frenzy for Tinklenberg continued.
Yesterday Markos linked to this piece from CQ Politics about how Tinklenberg’s campaign committee was the largest donor to the DCCC in March, giving a total of $250,000:
You may recall that his Republican opponent was Rep. Michele Bachmann, whose mid-October comment that Obama “may have anti-American views” angered Democrats nationwide and spawned an avalanche of contributions to Tinklenberg in the waning days of a campaign that Bachmann won by 46 percent to 43 percent, with a third-party candidate taking 10 percent.
Apparently the money was coming in too fast for Tinklenberg to spend completely: he raised $3 million for his campaign, of which $1.9 million came in after October 15, and had $453,000 in leftover campaign funds at the end of 2008 and $184,000 at the end of March.
I’m not saying it wasn’t worth getting behind Tinklenberg. Bachmann is among the worst Republicans in Congress, and this district rightly seemed winnable. However, the netroots clearly funneled way more money to Tinklenberg than he could spend effectively. We got carried away by emotions and were not thinking strategically.
What if a million of the dollars we sent to the MN-06 race had been spread around 10 or 20 other districts? A bunch of the candidates I wanted to support as part of an expanded field got blown out by large margins, but an extra $50,000 could have made the difference for Josh Segall in AL-03, or for several candidates who weren’t on my radar, such as Bill Hedrick in CA-44.
The netroots rally for Tinklenberg started out as a good cause but took on a momentum of its own. It didn’t help that Tinklenberg sent fundraising e-mails to his new donors every day or two during the home stretch, even after he had more than enough money to close out the campaign.
Maybe the majority of blog readers who gave $10 or $20 or $50 to Tinklenberg wouldn’t have given to some other longshot Congressional challenger. Maybe people need an emotional trigger before they are willing to open their wallets. But in future election cycles, we need to be smarter about how we focus our energy and our fundraising efforts during the final weeks of a campaign. There’s no shortage of wingnuts worth targeting. Also, a fair number of good incumbent Democrats will probably need our help in 2010, depending on how the economy looks 18 months from now.
Any ideas or suggestions on how to raise money effectively during the next cycle would be welcome in this thread.
Today Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama quite eloquently on Meet the Press.
But why did the lifelong Republican endorse Barack Obama, a Democrat? In part beacuse of our very own agent of hate, Michelle Bachmann.
This business from the congresswoman from Minnesota saying, let’s examine all congressman to see who is pro-American or not pro-American. We’ve got to stop this kind of nonesense and pull ourselves together. And remember that our great strength is in our unity and diversity and so, that really was driving me.
I’ve had some disagreements with Colin Powell in the past to put it lightly. But he hit the nail on the head. Even Colin Powell, a man who probably could have become the Republican nominee for President in 1996 realizes the hateful fear mongering of Michelle Bachmann hurts our image abroad and hurts the political debate in our country by bringing it into the gutter.
Hopefully Powell will take some time out of his busy schedule and come to Minnesota to endorse and campaign for El Tinklenberg, the common sense candidate who is running against Michelle Bachmann.
But even if Powell isn’t able to do that, I hope you donate to El Tinklenberg through the Netroots for El page. So far we’ve raised 1,415 from 28 donors and I’ve set a goal of 2,300, the equivalent of one maxed out big money donor. Let’s prove that a politics of hope can win and can defeat a agent of hate like Michelle Bachmann
Michelle Bachmann has turned into quite a hot topic here in the netroots after her disgraceful performance on Hardball that that you can watch for yourself here.
It’s hard to even begin on how horrifying that McCarthyesque, hateful interview was. But a lot of us Minnesotans have known about Michelle Bachmann and her hateful, extreme ways for years. Thankfully we’ve got a real shot at beating her this year, and you can help send her and her hateful brand of politics packing. Keep reading to find out how!
The Bachmann Record:
First a little more about Michelle Bachmann and why it is so critical that we win this race. You already know about her shameful performance on Hardball. But Michelle Bachmann has been embarrassing Minnesotans for a long time on a lot more then just that.
Blames Economic Woes on Minorities:
Just recently she blamed the financial crises on minorities,
Anti-Gay Zealot:
She was Minnesota’s leading anti-gay politician and now she’s a favorite of the anti-gay movement. When there was a march for GLBT rights on the day the Minnesota legislature voted down a hateful anti-gay constitutional amendment of hers she literally hid in the bushes and spied on them, I’M NOT KIDDING! During her rallies for her hateful amendment people carried signs calling for the murder of gay and lesbian people and she’s since said she’s proud of that rally.
Energy Dumb:
Bachmann is a global warming denier despite all the evidence out there. She also thinks if those horrible Democrats didn’t take over Congress gas would magically be 2 dollars a gallon. Yes she’s from the “Drill Baby Drill” school of thought.
Worst Person in the World:
Michelle has been appearing frequently on Keith Olbermann’s Worst Person in the World segment for over two years now. Here was her first time
and here is her latest
If you want to know more about why we need to Dump Bachmann head over to the good folks at Dump Bachmann who have been working hard to do just that since before she was even in Congress!
Thankfully we’ve got someone great running to replace her. Elwyn Tinklenberg. El was a city councilman and mayor of Blaine (a big city in the district), Minnesota Transportation Commissioner and is currently president of the The Tinklenberg Group a transportation consulting firm. He’s a big advocate for public transit, strongly pro-union and for smart economic policies, supports universal healthcare, is for ending the war in Iraq and is a strong advocate for a transition alternative energy and a green economy.
But he win?
Yes! A recent poll showed him only 4 points behind Bachmann or within the margin of error with 15 percent undecided. El’s got a perfect profile for the district but while Bachmann has raised 2 million as of the end of Q3 Tinklenberg has only managed to raise 1 million. In short, he needs our help to get his message out and win.
So donate!
Every little bit counts.
I set up a fundraising page with a goal of 10,000 so we can show Michelle Bachmann that we reject her politics of hate and so we can tell El Tinklenberg and his campaign that we embrace his politics of hope.
If Bachmann wins this race it will be a lot harder to beat her in the future and her politics of hate and fear could be in Congress for a generation. This is our best shot to prevent that. Michelle Bachmann is a disgrace to Minnesota and decent people everywhere in our nation.
