We missed this item in Thursday's Washington Post:
On the GOP side, the finger-pointing began soon after the results were clear. GOP officials faulted several lawmakers for blowing their races. For months, the National Republican Congressional Committee warned incumbents that this year's headwinds could endanger them -- even if they had not faced serious races before.
The NRCC went to Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) in the summer with a poll that showed him in real jeopardy in his race against teacher Tim Walz (D). Gutknecht did not adequately heed that warning, falling to Walz in the southern Minnesota 1st District.
So that's what this was all about at Checks and Balances back in August:
This item from the latest Checks & Balances [now behind C & B's subscription firewall] uses an anonymous source. Take "Is Gutknecht Preparing to Go Negative?" with a very large grain of salt:
A source with solid ties into Republican circles brought forward this interesting piece of information today. It seems the internal polling by Congressman Gil Gutknecht (R-MN1) is not all that pleased to see he is trailing Democratic challenger Tim Walz by double digits in his attempt for a 7th term of office.
The advantage Walz has is his personal war record in the Persian Gulf war and Gutknecht's past support of President George W. Bush (R) in the current Iraqi war. Gutknecht's own characterization of the war as not going well and being worse that people were first led to believe is not doing him any favors.
As much as we'd like to believe this story out on the Bluestem Prairie, it's no substitute for solid polling and sourced copy.
Here's hoping the Walz team depends more on hard work, smart campaigning, and aggressive fundraising than comforting rumors for the remaining weeks until November. Help them out here.
And so the Walz team did, with the help of your contributions.
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