I do hope he re-enters the race when Bachmann changes her mind and decides to run again!

Here’s the letter from Graves:

This is the most difficult message I’ve ever had to write.

A year ago, we set out on a mission: To restore civility, functionality and honesty to Washington by removing Michele Bachmann from office. Her hateful rhetoric and dangerous policies fueled an extremist movement unlike anything we’d seen in a long time. The tone it created was a poison pill that crippled Congress, preventing government from performing its most basic duties, like passing a budget.

Over this past year, I’ve never been more inspired. Thousands and thousands and thousands of you stepped up to the plate and sacrificed – your time, your money, your energy – to make our country a better place. Your passion will be etched into my memory forever.

This week, we learned that we succeeded. We set out to defeat Rep. Bachmann, and that has been accomplished. You should feel incredibly proud. After all, it was the grassroots movement you built that kept the pressure on and forced Rep. Bachmann from her seat in Congress.

I’ll never be able to thank you enough for being part of this team. But after struggling with this decision – agonizing over it with my friends, supporters and family, I’ve decided to suspend my campaign indefinitely.

As I said, I’ve never faced a more difficult decision. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your support and dedication.

Your friendship means the world to my family and me. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Jim

This ad comes at a time when Jim Graves has been shown in polls to be statistically even with (but a couple of points by count behind) Bachmann. So far, Bachmann has been relatively silent, which was probably a good move for her because she seems to have a hard time not spewing Crazy Talk when she doesn’t remain silent. This move by the GOP PAC, to underscore Bachmann’s crazy, is probably a good thing for the Graves campaign.

Notice that in the ad, they try very hard to get a picture of Graves, who is a calm, mild mannered, reasonable, thoughtful person, to have a crazy Bachmann-like look in his eyes, while at the same time making Bachmann not look so crazy. Unfortunately for the Bachmann campaign, it is a little late for that.

We drive by that mill several times a year. At one time it made paper for only two clients: The two main local newspapers, and it made most of their paper. But newspapers are dwindling in production, and so paper mills are fast becoming a thing of the past. This mill, we now know, will not be re-opened. The Sixth District needs to retool its industry and commerce. That will require some leadership, which will not come from Michele Bachmann.

You know what to do. Get out your credit card and CLICK HERE. Seriously. Click there.

And there are polls to indicate that this may be the case. Jim Graves, Michele Bachmann’s DFL opponent in the Sixth District Race in Minnesota, is creeeping closer and closer to Bachmann’s numbers, and it is possible that this race could even up over the next few weeks.

From the Minnesota Progressive Project:

A new poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan indicates that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is more vulnerable to her Democratic challenger than previously believed.
The polling firm surveyed about registered likely voters in the Sixth Congressional district of Minnesota from August 29 to August 30. The results indicate only forty per cent of the voters in Bachmann’s politically conservative district rate her performance “Excellent/Good.” Thirty-five per cent of those polled rate Bachmann’s performance “Poor.”

Asked who they would vote for if the election were held today, forty-eight per cent of those polled indicated that they would vote for incumbent Bachmann and forty-six per cent indicates they would vote for her opponent Jim Graves, a newcomer to politics.

Minnesota Political expert Bill Pendergast gives his analysis of this here. That site is getting a lot of sudden attention so it may take a moment to load, give it time.

Of critical importance is the fact that Graves has a strong advantage for future movement of the polls. From MinnPost:

The poll also show that Graves’ name ID in the district has jumped 20 points, though he’s still largely unknown at 38 percent. Meanwhile, Bachmann is known by 99 percent of voters. That will make it harder for Bachmann to change peoples’ perceptions about her, while Graves should be able to influence people who do not yet have an opinion of him.

This is not the only race in Minnesota that has a chance of replacing a Republican with a Democrat. Stay tuned.

Here’s Jim Graves at the convention: