Latest poll result announced by KSTP, a local Minnesota broadcasting outlet.
It's billed as a "KSTP/Survey USA poll."
The poll has Bachmann leading Clark by nine points. KSTP reports that the nine point Bachmann lead is unchanged since their last poll in July.
Clark leads among poll respondents aged 50 and older. Clark leads Bachmann by nine points with women respondents.
Undecideds make up five per cent of those polled.
Six per cent of voters support Independence Party candidate Bob Anderson (a dental hygienist with no political experience who took ten per cent of the vote in this district during its last congressional election.)
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Okay--so far this diary is stenography, but everybody wants to see polls--right?
Now here's the non-stenography part. Clark's approach to this campaign resembles that of her failed predecessors (Democrats Patti Wetterling and Elwyn Tinklenberg.) That means that she is pursuing Bachmann with an "all politics is local" strategy. Like Wetterling, Clark's focusing on local economic issues, hard times in the district. Like Tinklenberg, Clark has targeted Bachmann's non-representation of her constituents; Bachmann's monomaniacal self-promotion and absence on key local issues.
Apparently Clark and her people feel that this approach will work this time. They're hoping it will peel enough voters away from local independents and undecideds to give her a narrow victory over a demagogue who's acquired a national base that's far more formidable than her base in her district.
Clark's campaign has also pointed out (in so many words) that Bachmann lies--regularly, often, and about important stuff. That's good: the Wetterling and Tinklenberg campaigns were loathe to point that out during their efforts, and in my opinion failing to point out Bachmann's dependence on lies cost them dearly.
So Clark's approach so far has been: emphasis on pocketbook issues in the district, with a dash of "Bachmann's untrustworthy."
Will it work? I certainly hope so (as I did during the last campaigns.) But the issue here is not really "whether Tarryl Clark wins in November." The issue here is: how much a Dem candidate can use her temporary access to the media at election time to establish the fact that Bachmann's a nut, liar, and bigot.
The reason that that's more important than "Tarryl Clark gets elected": we can't rely on the professional news media to document the fact that Bachmann's a nut, liar, and bigot.
See the news broadcast announcing the poll results--the furthest they will go is to acknowledge that Bachmann's controversial and liberals are against her. That's entirely typical of Minnesota news media and political journalism. It's beyond argument that Bachmann's a nut, liar and bigot: the quotes out of her own mouth over the past ten years prove it.
But that won't become the "meme" outside the liberal and progressive world, unless that meme is forced into the local political media through use of the Dem election platform. If people like you and me submit evidence of the "nut, liar, and bigot" stuff--the professional media are free to ignore it (and they do.) If candidate Tarryl Clark submits evidence of the nut, liar and bigot stuff--then the professional media has to report that she submitted that evidence: and it becomes the topic of debate outside the hard core progressive/liberal and conservative blogging circles.
Christine O'Donnell said American scientists were hard at work cross-breeding humans with animals to produce mice with fully functioning human brains. The media reports that (and plenty of other O'Donnell stuff of record), and it hurts O'Donnell's chances of going higher in politics. A media that reported similar craziness on the part of Michele Bachmann--is Bachmann's worst nightmare.
But media here don't do that. They never have: not here in Minnesota where it can cost Bachmann support and votes. So Michele Bachmann can rest easy--unless a Dem candidate uses her time-sensitive access to the media this year to force Bachmann's craziness into the traditional news reporting.
Why do I say that it's more important that "Bachmann's craziness become the topic of this election" than "Tarryl Clark wins?" Because if the craziness doesn't get inserted into the election debate: Bachmann goes higher and higher in US politics, and continues to inspire crazy imitators to go enter US politics--and go higher, and higher.
The stakes in this election are far greater than the immediate consequences to the Sixth District. People outside the district sense that. Even if they disagree with me about "what the message of the Clark campaign should be," they know that another Bachmann victory is a victory for the entry of irrational and hateful into national policy making.
Link to video of poll results:
http://kstp.com/...
ACTION LINK: Please contribute to Tarryl Clark's campaign. Maybe I'm wrong; maybe Clark knows that her approach can win. In any case, any contribution that you send to Tarryl Clark is a stand against right-wing extremism in the US government.
http://tarrylclark.com