What about Bob? In the Fighting Sixth, a name goes a long way

Twenty-two Johnsons filed for election to Minnesota state or county offices this year (not counting one Johnston), edging out people named Anderson, who fielded 20 candidates (there were 15 Petersons, too). But while the Andersons finished second in the name game, one of their number struck the biggest blow on Election Day.

Robert Owen Anderson (he was just plain "Bob" on the ballot) is a 50-year-old who lives in a two-bedroom apartment in Woodbury and put his name on the Independence Party line when no one else did, plunking down $300 to file for the Sixth District congressional seat. If his last name was Schickelgruber, we would not have heard anything more about him. But his name is Anderson, and this is Minnesota, where people named Anderson are like people named Kennedy in Hyannisport: We want to vote for them.

A divorced father of two, Bob is a dental technician (his family owns an Edina lab that makes gold and porcelain crowns). Running a low-profile campaign on a shoestring -- he estimates the whole shebang cost under $800 -- Bob got 10 percent of the vote in the Sixth District, enough to help Motormouth Michele Bachmann hold off a challenge from Elwyn Tinklenberg despite Bachmann's notorious episode on "Hardball" that resulted in an avalanche of contributions to her opponent. Tinklenberg spent millions but should have made one more expenditure: He should have bought the name "Bob Anderson" from Bob Anderson.

Elwyn Tinklenberg? It was just "El" on the ballot, as in El Cid. But. c'mon: Mrs. Tinklenberg, what were you thinking? Nothing beats Bob. Especially when Bob is a clever guy.

Despite hope in many circles that El Tink would beat Bachmann, Minnesota's Madame Defarge won with 12,000 more votes than Tinklenberg. Bob came in third but received an impressive 40,644 votes, more than three times the number Tinklenberg lost by. And he did it with virtually no money or media. All he had was name recognition and plenty of it.

Around here, only "Betty Crocker" is warmer and fuzzier than "Bob Anderson."

Tinklenberg was endorsed by the DFL and the Independence Party. But you can appear on the ballot as the candidate of only one party, so Tinklenberg filed as a DFLer, leaving open the Independence Party line on the ballot. Mistake.

Anderson filed to run for the Independence Party nomination, without party endorsement. Unchallenged, he sailed through to the general election, where, like other IP candidates, he played a huge part in the outcome. But, contrary to rumors, Bob had no intention of being a spoiler. He thought his candidacy deserved more attention and more respect. If the voters had known more about him, he says, his candidacy might have hurt Republican Bachmann far more than Tinklenberg.

That was Bob's hope.

Bachmann was the only Minnesota member of Congress to vote against passage of the mental health parity act (called the Wellstone Act, in honor of late Sen. Paul Wellstone), which Anderson strongly supported, as did Tinklenberg. Bachmann's opposition ticked off Anderson.

"I was the conservative alternative in the Sixth District," he says. "There were only two people who could beat Michele Bachmann: Me and Michele Bachmann. I'm a pro-life Catholic who believes in smaller government, strong national defense and personal responsibility. I would have taken votes from Bachmann, if the media hadn't shut me out. You could spend $10 million on Tinklenberg and he's still going to be a Democrat in the most conservative district in the state."

Bob may be correct.

But the Democrats have been slow learners and have not adapted to the reality that there are three parties on the ballot these days, a puzzling lack of smarts for a party that gained power 60 years ago by merging Democrats with the Farmer-Labor Party. Tinklenberg might have been smarter to file as the Independence Party candidate.

The bottom line is we have three major parties and each of their candidates deserves to be taken seriously by everyone.

Bob was not.

Except by the voters. Forty thousand cast their ballot for good old Bob Anderson. Never underestimate a guy named Bob.