This week, we’ve been looking at the DFL-endorsee Brian Barnes and his campaign for the MN Third Congressional District seat held by Erik Paulsen. \u00a0Yesterday we noted they bobbled a niggling but, er, Federal regulation on their new batch of lawn signs.<\/p>\n
Today? \u00a0We’ll get serious.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, the Barnes campaign sent a fundraising email to their mailing list; they just spent a\u00a0ton\u00a0<\/em>of money getting a Minneapolis creative agency to produce a TV ad, and those don’t come cheap.<\/p>\n That’s fine. \u00a0Everybody does it.<\/p>\n But here’s where it gets interesting. \u00a0The third paragraph in the email says (I’ve added the emphasis):<\/p>\n Every dollar at this point goes toward getting our message to persuadable voters. We have been steadily closing the gap on Congressman Paulsen. We started with voters supporting Barnes 24% and Paulsen 39% in May, and we\u2019ve gained 20 points to his 8!<\/strong> In fact, he is beginning to lose voters since we\u2019ve been successfully showing voters he only talks like Jim Ramstad, but he votes more extreme than Michele Bachmann.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Let’s back that up for a moment; amid the awkward phrasing (are they claiming the race is 47-44 or not?), there are some questions.<\/p>\n What polling?<\/p>\n According to sources familiar with the history of the race, Barnes’ former campaign manager, Tom Beckfield, last month said that there had been no polling in this race. \u00a0That’s as of August. \u00a0And we know that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Dems’ national campaign organization and warchest, had done no polling in the 3rd CD – or at least they’d not released any into the public domain. \u00a0So if Barnes has national polls, they’re illegal.<\/p>\n