Summary: According to a new Gallup poll, the top four Republican presidential candidates are running neck-and-neck with President Obama in national general election matchups. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 23, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Tom Horner for Governor of Minnesota campaign released a TV ad for the general election campaign, titled “Eyeballs.”

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Summary: At the Iowa GOP / Fox News Debate in Ames, Iowa, Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty fought a rhetorical slugging match, with Bachmann likening Pawlenty to President Barack Obama and Pawlenty charging that Bachmann’s record of accomplishment in Congress “is nonexistent” and that “she has a record of misstating and making false statements.” … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 11, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported and analyzed the primary election results in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District (MN-06).

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Summary: Politico reports that Barack Obama’s aides and advisers are preparing to center the president’s reelection campaign on a ferocious personal assault on Mitt Romney’s character and business background, a strategy grounded in the early-stage expectation that the former Massachusetts governor is the likely GOP nominee. However, the Obama campaign would be sorely misguided if it diverted inordinate resources to fending off Romney as Barack Obama’s likely opponent. Despite being the early front-runner in public opinion polls, Romney is unlikely to be the Republican presidential nominee, with the vastly underestimated Michele Bachmann potentially posing the greater reelection threat to Obama in terms of personal charisma. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 9, 2010, Aubrey Immelman appealed to Minnesota voters to support Independent Tom Horner for governor in the August 10, 2010 primary election.

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Summary: As the Tea Party continues to reshape the Republican Party, the GOP establishment wonders if the Tea Party movement will power Republicans to new victories in 2012, or dash them on the rocks of unbending ideology. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 6, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that NBC Dateline devoted a full hour to the murder mystery of Chris Jenkins, the University of Minnesota student who went missing in downtown Minneapolis on Halloween night, 2002.

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Summary: MSNBC TV hosts Chris Matthews, Lawrence O’Donnell, and Rachel Maddow have made early forecasts of the winner of the 2012 presidential election. With the exception of Matthews, the talks show hosts are overestimating Barack Obama’s prospects for reelection and all three are underestimating Michele Bachmann’s potential for success. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 2, 2010, Aubrey Immelman endorsed former Republican Tom Horner as the best choice for Minnesota in the Independence Party gubernatorial primary.

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Summary: In the race for the Republican presidential nomination, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann has surged into second place behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, with support from 16 percent of GOP primary voters, according to a new NBC / Wall Street Journal poll. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on July 21, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the St. Cloud Times — the largest newspaper in Rep. Michele Bachmann’s congressional district — had a letter to the editor in which the letter writer offered a broad-ranging indictment of Bachmann, in which the congresswoman was characterized as self-centered, unresponsive to the needs of her district, meager in her legislative accomplishments, and shirking the hard work of effective governance. Immelman noted, however, that it was not until the end of the letter that the writer touched on the real problem with Bachmann: her delusion-like paranoia, her shameless conspiracy-peddling, and her incessant fear-mongering.

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Summary: A new Quinnipiac poll shows Tea Party favorites Michele Bachmann (14%), Sarah Palin (12%), and Rick Perry (10%) are collectively running well ahead of Mitt Romney (25%) in the Republican presidential primary. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on July 14, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that eight American troops were killed in a series of attacks in the Kandahar offensive in southern Afghanistan.

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Summary: Rep. Michele Bachmann is statistically tied with Gov. Mitt Romney at the top of the first Iowa poll of the 2012 Republican presidential primary campaign season, conducted by the Des Moines Register. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on June 26, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that central Minnesota voters had the opportunity to meet gubernatorial candidate Tom Horner’s running mate, lieutenant-governor candidate Jim Mulder at the Granite City Days parade in St. Cloud.

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Summary: Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s reluctance to go toe-to-toe with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the CNN-hosted GOP presidential debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., on June 13, 2011 is consistent with his personality profile. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on June 16, 2010, Aubrey Immelman chronicled the rise of right-wing extremism in America following the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States in November 2008, reporting that the growing fear among some citizens of losing their rights and freedoms had created a political backlash toward the U.S. government that was manifesting itself in violent rhetoric and anti-government groups who want to “take their country back.”

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Summary: On the eve of the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary debate, there are five key reasons to take Michele Bachmann seriously. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on June 11, 2010, Aubrey Immelman excerpted and annotated a mildly critical, though occasionally admiring, Washington Post profile of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, published June 4, 2010.

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