Tinklenberg has been testing the waters for a 2010 campaign both in Minnesota and Washington. He’s been courting the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and national labor unions whose financial support would be key if he decides to take another run at the post. Tinklenberg has also kept his name in the mix by doling out contributions to other Democrats and sponsoring the DFL’s Hubert H. Humphrey Day dinner.

He would have an advantage with the groundwork he has laid over the last four years, but not everyone is enthusiastic about the prospect of another shot for the former mayor of Blaine. There’s been considerable grumbling about the effectiveness of the campaign he ran two years ago. Most notably, political observers question why Tinklenberg ended the race with nearly $500,000 still sitting in the bank.

“They ran a piss-poor campaign,” says one veteran DFL insider, who didn’t want to be named criticizing a member of his own party. “They were trying to bio Elwyn two weeks out. You want to establish your identity before the media market gets so cluttered.”

You can read Paul’s full breakdown of the 2010 landscape in Minnesota’s 6th here.

Minnesota Republican congresswoman Michelle Bachmann stirred up a media storm Friday when she told MSNBC’s “Hardball With Chris Mathews” that “the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look — I wish they would — take a great look at the views of people in Congress and find out [if] they [are] pro-America or anti-America.”

Today, a spokesman for Bachmann had no suggestions as to which questions reporters should ask lawmakers to determine if they are pro- or anti-American. “You guys know what kinds of questions to ask,” Bachmann’s spokeswoman, Michelle Marsten, said in a phone interview Monday. “It’s not for us to decide.”

Asked which members of Congress the media should interview, Marsten said her boss had “no one in mind.”

Bachmann’s call for an inquiry into the patriotism of members of Congress, which spread rapidly in the liberal blogosphere, helped her opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg, to raise more than $650,000 over the weekend. A Democratic poll released last week showed Tinklenberg trailing Bachmann by just four percentage points, 42-38, in a race that until recently was considered safe for the incumbent.

Bachmann told a local TV station this morning that her remarks had been “misread.” While she has enjoyed a high-profile run as Republican spokesman in the fall campaign, her remarks on “Hardball” is the latest gaffe in a series of controversial statements that have marked her tenure in Congress.