It’s worth thinking about the story from CQ, that the DCCC has received $250,000 in leftover money from El Tinklenberg, the Democrat who lost to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) last year by a 46%-44% margin. How did he come so close, and have that much money left over?
You might recall that after Bachmann’s now-infamous Hardball appearance on October 17, in which she said she was deeply concerned that Barack Obama might be anti-American and called for the media to investigate members of Congress for anti-Americanism, liberals around the country immediately clamored to send some money to her opponent. As a result, Tinklenberg took in $1.9 million in the home stretch.
Before this, Tinklenberg hadn’t even had enough cash to run any TV ads — he only ran his introductory spot on October 21. This shot in the arm, and the controversy surrounding her comments, allowed him to make it close in a heavily-Republican district where he hadn’t had any chance before.
The problem though, was that this event happened only about two weeks away from Election Day — Tinklenberg had more money than he could possibly spend. So while the liberal blogosphere truly discovered who this Michele Bachmann person was, and made a collective decision to seriously take her on, it was simply too late this time around.
