Schumacher on the Barkley candidacy

Larry Schumacher at the SC Times had a blog post up about a possible Barkley v. Bachmann race.

Larry seems as skeptical as I am about a successful Barkley race in 2008.

Barkley does defend his possible candidacy though.

"The Sixth District is tailor-made for independents," Barkley told me. "We got
close to 50 percent of the vote there in 1998."

Yeah, close to 50% against Norm Coleman and Buck Humphrey. Ventura rode a wave of voter dissatisfaction. Combined with a great marketing campaign and candidates that took an Independent challenge lightly, an upset occurred.

Sadly, I doubt lighting will strike twice for Independents in Minnesota.

It's doubtful Barkley will run as a Democrat. Bob Hill is in the race thus far and has a very positive and forward thinking message that could resonate with rural voters. Nancy Schumacher, 6th DFL Chair says more could be added to the endorsement run.

"We already have Bob Hill as a candidate and there's at least one more
person who's considering it," she said. "We'll have an endorsed DFLer in the
race."

Hmmm, at least one more person heh? I wonder if its a certain woman I know who has some deep Central Minnesota ties as well as connections deep within the party.

And I'm not talking Tarryl Clark either...

It's been an interesting month since we broke the story a month ago! I agree with Larry's assessment though, the current electorate is not moving in this direction and his race would hurt any serious challenge of Michele Bachmann.