Residual Forces

Flash (Centrisity) was first and now King has confirmed that Patty Wetterling will be going back on her word (ahem - misleading) that she wouldn’t run in the 6th CD and will soon be back to the campaign trail.

Flash noted late Friday that Patty Wetterling has blown off Mike Hatch’s overtures to be his running mate, and that she will run in the Sixth District Congressional race. This means she will break her promise to Ev Tinklenberg that she would not enter that race. I asked some DFL party people about this over the weekend and they confirmed it. They are using a “draft Patty” campaign including a rally here in St. Cloud yesterday afternoon. Theory goes: If she breaks the promise she will receive negative press, but it would fade rather quickly and not be a problem for her by the time the district convention arrives. Makes sense to me.

If she does run for Congress again, this does nothing but hand the seat to the Republicans. Tinklenberg v (one of the 4 GOPers running) would be a battle for the conservative vote, granted the few far lefties would be left out of the loop, but there are not enough urban-style liberals up in the 6th to take them all too seriously. (By that I mean, they are a relatively small percentage of the voters.) Who is more - Pro-Life, Pro-GWOT and Pro-Guns will be the race if it is with Tinklenberg. With Wetterling it will again be a popularity or name recognition contest since she has avoided every single policy question asked of her in the last 3 years.

And Wetterling cannot even approach 2nd Amendment rights, a Pro- War on Terror, or Pro-Life voter with out being laughed out of the room.

I’ll be honest here. I see a Tinklenberg candidacy to be very formidable, but another Wetterling one, come on. I admire her work on behalf of child safety following her lose of Jacob, but elected office is no place for one to be recognized for recovering from a personal tragedy.