Waves of concern rippled among democrats throughout northeastern Minnesota Thursday on the heels of former State Senator Tarryl Clark's announcement that she intends to bypass the party endorsement and force a DFL primary in the 8th congressional district. In what is likely to be one of the milder comments directed at the St Cloud resident in the wake of her revelation, Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin stressed the importance of party unity if we are to defeat incumbent Tea Party Rep. Chip Cravaack (MN/NH):
We are disappointed to hear that Tarryl Clark will not be abiding by the DFL endorsement. As a former associate chair of the State DFL Party, Tarryl Clark knows the importance of the endorsement process. By forcing a primary election, we risk wasting valuable DFL resources and drawing the focus away from the real goal of defeating Chip Cravaack.
There is far too much at stake in the Eighth Congressional District to focus on anything other than making Chip Cravaack a one-term Congressman. That is why it is so important that we unite as a party in support of a DFL-endorsed candidate who understands the values of the Eighth District and who is committed to representing the people of northeastern Minnesota in Washington
And Martin is indeed correct that Clark knows better. During her 6th district race against Michele Bachmann, Clark argued that forcing an expensive and time consuming primary benefits only the republicans and insisted that "a unified DFL team has a better chance to defeat(the incumbent)." Yet this year Tarryl Clark has inexplicably backtracked on that firmly-held conviction, choosing instead to hand Bachmann-clone Chip Cravaack the best - and only - lifeline he could possibly hope to receive after his dismal performance representing the 8th district in Congress: a divided DFL party.
The concerns of handing Cravaack a victory are valid. To the best of my knowledge, a DFL candidate for the U. S House of Representatives has never defeated an incumbent member of Congress after first fighting their way through a primary. The conventional wisdom 'when the DFL fights, the DFL loses' certainly applies here and armed with that information, one must ask the following question:
Why would any DFLer who truly cares about working people risk allowing a union busting, right wing extremist like Chip Cravaack to become entrenched in northeastern Minnesota?