Bob Anderson

Things are heating up in the race to unseat 6th District Rep. Michele Bachmann: Democrat Maureen Reed raised $230,000 in the two months following her announcement to run; past challenger Elwyn Tinklenberg says he’ll be in the Democratic primary whether he gets the DFL nod or not; and state Sen. Tarryl Clark is expected to announce her candidacy soon. Another twist: Third-party candidate Bob Anderson — who garnered 10 percent of the vote in the 2008 election — is seriously considering running again.

Tarryl Clark has been rumored to be eyeing either the governor’s race or a challenge to U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in the Sixth Congressional District, but she has remained cagey about her ambitions. The local DFL chair says Clark “is actively considering getting into the Sixth Congressional District race.”

Thanks for the memories. Now please go away. Yes, we’re talking about you, Rudy Giuliani. And you, Wolf Blitzer. We no longer wish to be a swing state. Henceforth the residents of the state of Minnesota promise to vote reliably Democratic. Or Republican. It doesn’t much matter which — just as long as you people promise to stop showing up in our little slice of the frozen tundra seeking to feel our pain. But to memorialize the horrors visited upon us during the (still ongoing) campaign season, we offer — in honor of our favorite member of the Statewide General Election Canvassing Board — the G. Barry Anderson Awards.

You can’t tell the players in the Minnesota Senate recount drama with a scorecard — even a Politico blog that’s called The Scoreboard misattributed a quote (since corrected) on Monday from Marc Elias, a lawyer for Al Franken, as coming from Fritz Knaak, U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s recount attorney. Minnesota media mostly keep those two straight, but even locals find the profusion of Scandinavian surnames in the various recount venues vexing. More including the Anderson Effect and a Sven-and-Ole routine, after the jump.

Republican incumbent Rep. Michele Bachmann and two challengers who hope to unseat her to represent Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District in Washington met in Stillwater Wednesday evening for the first candidates’ forum. In front of a standing-room-only crowd, Bachmann, DFL-endorsed El Tinklenberg and Bob Anderson, the unendorsed Independence Party candidate, sparred mainly over the economy, although energy, the war in Iraq and the Stillwater lift bridge each garnered some attention.

The best line of the night came when Tinklenberg criticized Bachmann on her offshore and ANWR drilling proposals: “The strategy that she has proposed of ‘Drain America First’ is a bad strategy.”