Former state Sen. Tarryl Clark, a candidate for the DFL nomination in Northeastern Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District, recently scored a big endorsement (former President Bill Clinton) and is now out with a new ad that shows Clinton praising her.
The footage is actually taken from 2010, when Clinton campaigned for Clark as a candidate against Michele Bachmann in the central Minnesota 6th District. As you probably know know, Clark switched districts this year in her second try for Congress. Here’s the ad:
Clark is running for the DFL nomination to take on freshman Repub Congressman Chip Cravaack. In the Aug. 14 primary, she will be up against Duluth Councilman Jeff Anderson and former Congressman Rick Nolan. Clark sought the DFL endorsement, then pulled out of the endorsement battle after it became clear that Nolan was going to be endorsed, which he was.
Nolan is also up with a new ad which, probably in reaction to the Clinton endorsement of Clark, emphasizes that he has the support of Minnesota’s top three DFL officeholders, Gov. Mark Dayton and U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken. Here’s that ad:
There’s a certain perverse comfort
…in seeing the state’s DFL form the familiar circular firing squad.
Fortunately, I don’t live in the 6th district, from which Mrs. Clark escaped, nor do I live in the 8th district, represented by the Congressman from New Hampshire, Mr. Cravaack. Nonetheless, from this distance, it’s hard to see – aside from oversized egos – why one or more of these DFL candidates is clearly superior to the other(s). I would not be surprised, however, if a bruising primary battle had the effect of weakening the eventual DFL candidate, whoever it turns out to be.
Frankly, I was a Clark fan when she was a state senator and lived in the 6th. Moving to Duluth just so she could run for Congress strikes me as… the best I can come up with is “inauthentic” or perhaps “shallow.” Moving in order to have a better chance of being elected is, on the one hand, a perfectly legitimate political strategy, but I confess it strikes me as something that says more about the political ambitions of the candidate than about how that candidate will serve the people of that district.
Mr. Cravaack is an absentee Congressman, but someone moving into the district just for the chance to go to Congress from it puts me off, and the Clinton endorsement means somewhere between very little and nothing. I’d be inclined to favor Mr. Nolan by default. Fortunately, it’s not my district. Unfortunately, it’s a district that the DFL ought to pick up this fall, but won’t if that circular firing squad achieves its traditional success.
As I recall . . . . .
Hillary Clinton kicked off her political career in a similar way – establishing residency in New York just so she could run as a candidate from there. And I remember being similarly put off.
But it sure looks like it worked for her, so I suppose others take that as encouragement.
Sigh.