“Basically, after all that’s gone on, and with Michele Bachmann now stepping down, I’ve been talking to my friends and family and frankly, the feeling is, ‘Mission Accomplished.’ She wasn’t representing the people of the 6th District appropriately, and now she won’t be representing them. There’s no way anyone could run and win who would be worse than Michele Bachmann. So we accomplished that task.”

I asked Graves if he was claiming credit for ending Bachmann’s political career, but he demurred. “I don’t know everything that went into her decision,” he said. “Clearly, it was going to be a competitive race. All through Memorial Day weekend, she was in the district, working the crowds. Obviously something happened to cause her to believe that she shouldn’t run again. We’re very happy she dropped out. The country can do better.”

And so now, there suddenly aren’t any Democrats or Republicans running to represent Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District. This will change, of course, but it’s not every day that both candidates in the most highly-watched congressional race in the country drop out within 48 hours of one another. source