A Minnesotans thoughts on Michelle Bachmann

by: Populista

Sat Oct 18, 2008 at 18:53


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!
Populista :: A Minnesotans thoughts on Michelle Bachmann
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!

Send El to Congress!

Photo by Aaron Landry
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.

Goal Thermometer

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.

So donate to El Tinklenberg!

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.

So please, please. Donate to El Tinklenberg.

Originally posted at The Populista Report

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A Minnesotans thoughts on Michelle Bachmann | 25 comments
Where Was Chris Matthews? (4.00 / 3)
Why did he let her, albeit encourage her hate speech?  When she brought up Wright why didn't he bring up Hagee?  

Letterman had the guts to challenge McCain with Liddy, Tweety couldn't mention McCain's relationship, friendship with Keating?

Matthews is a dichotomy onto himself and an anathema to me.  Thank God for Rachel and Olbermann lest we have nothing.

Good post Populista.  Keep up the good fight.

well (4.00 / 1)
at least he let Bachmann expose her craziness. I personally don't think I'd be able to talk if I was him.

John McCain: Beacuse lobbyists should have more power
[ Parent ]
I think just letting her go worked pretty well (4.00 / 5)
He gave her the rope to hang herself with. Obviously, it would be red meat for the Republican base, but for any sort of reasonable person would say "Jesus, she's a nut". When somebody is that crazy, just letting them speak is a good way to go.

Conduct your own interview of Sarah Palin!
[ Parent ]
I Agree (0.00 / 0)
She is fast becoming a poster child for the divisiveness of the Republican party.  I watched the interview again, Matthews was holding himself back.  I look forward to today's (Sunday) special edition of Hardball to see if he brings it up.  Also, what he does on Monday's show.
[ Parent ]
What kind of district is this? (0.00 / 0)
It would be interesting to know what kind of place would elect a pig-ignorant dumbass as their public face in the first place. One doesn't generally see MN as a place full of wingnuts and neo-Nazis.
Most conservative district in MN (4.00 / 2)
R+6 PVI. The exbrubs of the Twin Cites (Washington and Anoka County) which are pretty wealthy and fairly fiscally Republican but not as extreme on social issues, then more rural Bible thumping areas plus St Cloud which is one of the largest cities outside of the official metro area.

It's a toughish district but winnable by the right candidate. El is that kind of candidate. He was mayor of Blaine the largest city in Anoka County and was Transportation Commissioner under Jesse Ventura. That's another thing, Minnesota's Independence Party (Ventura's Party) is very strong in the district, it's candidate got 8 percent last time and Ventura won the district. This time they endorsed Tinklenberg.  

John McCain: Beacuse lobbyists should have more power

[ Parent ]
why did matthews (4.00 / 1)
allow bachmann to continue her diatribe, because tweety is a friend of the rw, you will notice on that night he lets the hate mongers from the gop continue with their bogus charges and tweety acts like he is unnerved by their agenda, but he can't stop from coming back time after time to get their point straight, even though he is put off by them and just can't understand the hate, not.
I don't think that was his intention (0.00 / 0)
I don't like Tweety, but I think last night he thought he was asking tough follow-up questions to pin her down. He should have moved on rather than keep asking her the same question, prompting the same hateful answers.

So many "journalists" have no idea how to conduct an interview.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.

[ Parent ]
Your my hero populista! (4.00 / 2)
Bachmann's brand of Teh Stoopid!! .. (4.00 / 1)
has already cost her around a half a million dollars worth of donations to Tinklenberg ... lets run her out of DC the right way .. at the ballot box!!
I sent her opponent $100 last night. (4.00 / 2)
She keeps running her goddam fucking mouth like that, that hundred will turn into $500.  Fucking bitch.

For some reason, it seems that Obama has some pathological and deep-seated psychological need for Republicans to like him.  Seriously.  It's weird.
please spread the wealth around (4.00 / 2)
There are so many awful Republican incumbents, and a lot of good challengers:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008...

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.

[ Parent ]
Describe the District??? (4.00 / 5)
I have a lengthy description over at Firedoglake in the Bachmann topic under Oxdown -- it is a very interesting district.  

Why was she elected in 2006, easy answer, the Independents had a fairly decent candidate on their line, and he got about 9% of the votes.  Our 2006 DFL candidate, Patty Wetterling, could win in many districts, but was not a strong candidate in the 6th.  Tinklenberg is far better suited to the 6th.  DCCC just promoted this race last week, meaning they will be buying advertising -- and this race requires both the expensive Twin Cities Media Market, and the cheaper St. Cloud one.

To understand the district you need to know some geography and demographics, so get out a map of Minnesota.  The East side of the 6th, is along the Minnesota/Wisconsin border, east of St. Paul.  Both the 2nd and the 6th, north and south of the Twin Cities, wrap around and split the eastern suburbs between them.  The 6th extends from around Stillwater and Bayport north toward Taylors Falls on the St. Croix, and then extends west to the center of the state, around St. Cloud and Collegeville.  That rally for McCain in Lakeville where the woman called Obama an Arab -- well right on the line dividing the 2nd from the 6th.  That Rally, by the way, was ticketed through a couple of the suburban mega churches -- and those are base for Bachmann.  

The east end of the District was settled up in the mid 19th Century by Swedes -- and many of the towns outside of the cities are largely Swedish.  If you know the films in "The Emigrant" saga based on the four books by Wilhelm Moberg, you will know the area.  Taylors Falls, Stillwater, Chisago City, Forest Lake -- all towns of that sort.  Normally they vote Republican, but they are not so Socially Conservative. One big advantage El Tinklenberg has is that he is a Lutheran Supply Pastor in the ELCA, meaning it takes parishes for a short term when a pastor dies, gets sick, travels, and over the years he has served many of the Parishes in this area.  He is thus extremely well networked in the East part of the district.  

El Tinklenberg has long been active in the DFL, but in 1998 he was selected by Jesse Ventura to be Commissioner of Transportation in his administration.  Did a good job.  Jesse's power base is in the central part of the district, look at the map for Anoka, well around there, and Blaine and on up toward Big Lake.  This year the Independents, Ventura's party, did not endorse one of their own for Congress, but instead left their line blank and endorsed Tinklenberg.  Jesse is campaigning for him in his home turf.  (I'd love to see a Ventura/Bachmann face off.)  The DFL endorsed Tinklenberg, so he is running with two endorsements.  

The western end of the District -- around St. Cloud, is Irish and German Roman Catholic, largely settled up by emigrants brought over by St. Paul's Bishop Ireland in the 1880's, with the support of James J. Hill of Northern Pacific RR fame, -- Ireland thought Minnesota was getting too Lutheran for its own good.  Today the area is semi-famous as the fictional location of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegone, which got caught in the crease of a map.  But it is also the home of Sinclair Lewis, Saulk Center is the model for Gopher Prairie in Mainstreet.  It is also home to that All American Fascist Flyboy, Charles Lindberg -- his father served a term in Congress from the area.  The Catholic character of the area is sustained by the Benedictine Abby at Collegeville, and the two colleges it supports.  Gene McCarthy's roots were in the west end of the 6th District.  

Anyhow -- that should give you an idea.  

thanks so much for this sara (4.00 / 2)

[ Parent ]
Close (4.00 / 1)
A few quibbles. There is no St. Cloud media market, it's all the TC market, and Ventura won the district. Unfortunately a Bachmann plant filed for the IP primary and so even though Tink has the official endorsement of the IP there will be someone on the IP line beacuse MN doesn't have a fusion system.

Pretty good description. El is the perfect Democrat for the district.

John McCain: Beacuse lobbyists should have more power

[ Parent ]
Conservative Swedes? (0.00 / 0)
I've never really understood how the Scandinavian parts of America wound up being so conservative. The immigrants tended to be those in the most marginal positions in Scandinavian society (farming a small patch of gravel half way up a freezing Norwegian mountainside, etc.) and immigrants in general are more likely to favour government spending.

Then you add in the fact that Scandinavia is generally pretty liberal (with the exception of Denmark's anti-immigrant politicians) and that rural areas there may be pro-hunting but they don't possess any other obvious big revanchist tendencies.

Any insights as to why places like the Dakotas aren't blue through and through? Is this just due to the changing face of Republicanism?

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

[ Parent ]
Long story -- very long story. (0.00 / 0)
The Danes, Swedes and Norwegians came in slightly different migrant waves, and for different reasons.  And they did different things when they arrived.  

The big Swedish migration was because of famine, and because the smallish farmers had quite poor land.  They came in the late 1840's through the 1870's for good land to farm, Minnesota and Wisconsin have some of the best land in the world if you are a small grain/dairy farmer, (the Swedish ag skills), and it was very cheap when the Swedes arrived. They brought with them certain co-operative ideas and institutions -- marketing and small scale banking, and within one generation they created in parts of MN, Wisconsin and Illinois a very prosperous "new Sweden"  They had some conflict over Religion, in the mid 19th Century Sweden did not tolerate religious discent, so the discenters got exported to America.  Google "Bishop's Hill" in Illinois to see one version of this.  

Danes had several waves of immigration after they lost wars to Germany in 1848, 1862, and 1894.  The upshot was the loss of Southern Jylland, and the forced Germanization of the "volk" by Bismark. (No more Danish Language, Danish Lutheran Church, Danish Schools, etc.,) and there was no farm land in Denmark available, so they decided on Wisconsin, SW Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska.  The high point of migration was the beginning of the Homestead Act of 1863, so the Danes largely Homesteaded, and got free land for their development labor.  In terms of Religion, the Danes split between the Grundvigians and the more evangelical traditions -- the Grundvigians are the Happy Danes, and the others, the Holy Danes.  Both groups built their institutions, churches, Folk Schools, and eventually colleges and even later, urban community centers.  Danes tend to be politically more liberal, became very involved in developing ag. co-ops, credit unions, and later the labor movement.  Very involved in the LaFollette Progressive movement in Wisconsin, the Farmer-Labor party in Minnesota, and the Non-Partisian League in N. Dakota.  

The Norwegians are a different case.  Remember until 1820 Norway was ruled from Copenhagen as part of the Danish Crown lands, but given that the Danes sided with the French during the Napoleonic Wars (the British Navy shelled Copenhagen), at the Congress of Vienna, Norway was turned over to Sweden, which apparently had been on the "right" side. So from 1820 till the first decade of the 20th Century, Norway was a colony of Sweden -- and Norwegians had a fairly significant Independence Movement that got a bit nasty at times.  So a good many Norwegians came because they saw no future under Swedish rule.  Most were not farmers, and while some became farmers in Iowa and N. Dakota, the vast majority became wage labor, particularly in the timber industry, the flour milling industry, and in all other sorts of manufacturing.  They too built institutions, schools, a Lutheran Denomination, publishing houses, and a vast insurance industry (Sons of Norway and Lutheran Brotherhood).  Norwegian Politics trend quite liberal -- Democrats, Farmer-Laborites, Non-Partisian League types.

The Norwegian struggle for Independence was played out here in Minnesota in the 1890's when the Norwegians surpassed the Swedes in numbers, and elected a Norwegian born Governor.  Then they sponsored a law that required all High Schools to offer Norwegian Language as a course, and required the study of the Norwegian Constitution (not yet adopted.)  We only cleaned stuff like that out of the state constitution in 1972 when we had a big housecleaning.  But the point was, all the Minnesota Swedes had to study the Norwegian language and constitution.  A victory for the freedom of Norway!!!  

As I said, it is a very long story, and this is just a thumbnail sketch.  My connection to Scandinavia is through being an exchange student years ago in Denmark (yep, I speak Danish), and friends there always are a bit shocked when I make the point that there are not quite 6 million Danes in Denmark, but there are 17 million Americans who have significant Danish lineage.  

Another Danish migration -- very different, is the mormons.  The Mormons went to Denmark in the 1840's and 50's and made lots of converts, and then gave aid toward migrating to Utah.  Lots of Danish Mormons pushed those hand carts across the plains to Utah, and Utah is filled with Danish place names.  No surprise, they are politically very conservative.      

[ Parent ]
isn't $488,000 enough? (4.00 / 1)
Populista, I don't disagree with how hateful Michelle Bachmann is, but Tinklenberg's campaign reported raising more than $488K in the last 24 hours.

At this point I don't understand the logic of raising more money for his campaign. There are only two weeks left. Why not raise $50K for each of 10 challengers to equally hateful Republicans?

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.

That's a lot of money (0.00 / 0)
That's an incredible amount for to be raised for a house race in one day. Have there been any other netroots-originated fund-raisers that big and that fast?

Conduct your own interview of Sarah Palin!
[ Parent ]
none that I'm aware of (0.00 / 0)
I think we made out point, and it is time to focus on other races in what looks like a Democratic wave year. $50K each to ten under-funded challengers will do more than raising additional funds for Tinklenberg at this point.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.
[ Parent ]
You're right (4.00 / 2)
I agree, as much as I want to kick Bachmann's ass, I can't imagine that half a million isn't more than enough for two weeks of a house campaign in that district.

I just wish I had saved some turkee for these emerging races late in the cycle.

Conduct your own interview of Sarah Palin!

[ Parent ]
Well (4.00 / 1)
Bachmann had 1 million more then him before that. So she'll still be able to outspend him, and this is a tough district, so he really does need all of that money.

I'm down with a effort like that any day though.

John McCain: Beacuse lobbyists should have more power

[ Parent ]
few challengers can match (0.00 / 0)
an incumbent's spending dollar for dollar. We've helped him narrow the gap considerably.

We need to look at how much a House campaign can reasonably need for the final two weeks of the campaign.

A million dollars would have been great for El in July, but he doesn't need a million dollars for the final two weeks.

I am just concerned about the netroots getting so wrapped up in this race, when we have other challengers for whom $50,000 now would make all the difference, in districts where the incumbent has a bigger cash advantage than Bachmann now.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.

[ Parent ]
Steve King = worst person in the world (4.00 / 2)
Olbermann has conferred that title on him at least two or three times in recent years. Most famously, for when King said terrorists would be "dancing in the streets" if Obama were elected.

Also, Ann Coulter has called Steve King one of her favorites:

http://iowaindependent.com/676...

Better Democrat Rob Hubler spoke out against the FISA bill and supports the Responsible Plan for Iraq:

http://www.hublercongress.com/

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.

Another horrible person. (4.00 / 2)
And Rob would be another great person to donate to.

John McCain: Beacuse lobbyists should have more power
[ Parent ]
A Minnesotans thoughts on Michelle Bachmann | 25 comments
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