Taxpayer's League statement on Bachmann campaign literature

Full text available at http://www.taxpayersleague.org/.

It has come to our attention that State Senator Michele Bachmann’s campaign has distributed a literature piece which claims that Senator Bachmann has the highest cumulative Taxpayers League voting record of all the candidates in the years 2000-2004. Bachmann’s literature claims an average of 96% from 2000-2004, and an average of 95% for Representative Krinkie.

This is not accurate.

For the period of time that Representative Krinkie and Senator Bachmann have served in the legislature together (actually 2001-2005), Krinkie has a cumulative 100% voting record, Bachmann a 92% voting record and Representative Knoblach a 75% voting record.

Senator Bachmann’s calculations depend on including four years of scoring for Representative Krinkie in which she did not hold elected office and omitting 2005 – a year in which she scored 77%.

For the complete text of David’s statement, copies of past Legislative Scorecards and reprints of Senator Bachmann’s campaign literature, click here.

My thoughts? I thnk anyone would hard pressed to run as being more fiscally conservative than Phil Krinkie. And even if true, a calculated 1 percent is hardly worth quibbling over. Just not a good strategy decision.

Phil's certainly not ashamed of his voting record, and Michele shouldn't be either.

At least one of Michele's dings by the Taxpayer's League was the lose/lose vote set up by the Governor when he forced legislators into a situation where a vote against the "health impact fee" was also vote against a life-affirming provision in the Health and Human Services Bill. I wouldn't fault either Phil or Michele for their votes on that one.

Hopefully there's a lesson here. There are four good Republican Candidates in the 6th District, and each brings something different to the table. Each should play to his or her strengths, not others weaknesses. The 6th is not about who would make the "best Congress person." They'd all be great. It's about what kind of Congressperson do 6th District voters want.

Update: Residual Forces has good thoughts on this and there's a lively comment string going. Just a caveat for comments here -- personal attacks don't add to the discussion. If that's all you got, take it elsewhere.