The Democratic field to go up against Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is now shrinking, with 2008 nominee El Tinklenberg announcing that he has dropped out of the race in order to avoid a messy Democratic contest.

This could be a sign of the party circling around state Senate assistant majority leader Tarryl Clark, who got in the race in the past couple weeks. The other remaining Democratic candidate is Maureen Reed, a former University of Minnesota regent and 2006 Independence Party nominee for Lt. Governor, who raised a significant sum of money before Clark got in.

"In a difficult district during tough financial times we will be spending large amounts of time and money trying to defeat each other rather than defeating Michele Bachmann," Tinklenberg said in his statement. "That is not a campaign I want to wage nor is it the kind of campaign that strengthens our chances of electing a Democrat next fall."

As we've noted before, Tinklenberg received an avalanche of last-minute donations in his 2008 campaign, after Bachmann made her infamous appearance on Hardball -- the one where she called on the media to investigate Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats for being anti-American. However, he received so much money that there wasn't enough time left to spend all of it. Tinklenberg donated about $250,000 last quarter to the DCCC -- and even still, he ended the quarter with just under $200,000 cash on hand, most of it left over from the 2008 race.