Bachmann for President?

[babylonsister]

Bachmann for President?

by Michelle Goldberg

America’s craziest member of Congress has hinted at running for the nation’s highest office, and who can blame her? Even her latest outbursts haven’t threatened her bulletproof status, Michelle Goldberg reports.


Michele Bachmann has always been on the far right of her right-wing party, but for the past year, her lunacy has been particularly vigorous. First was the McCarthyite demand for an investigation of “anti-American” members of Congress. Then came her fear that Obama was creating “re-education camps” via the AmeriCorps program (a program her son has since joined). There was her call for Minnesotans to be “armed and dangerous” revolutionaries against cap-and-trade legislation and her paranoid opposition to the Census. And on Monday, railing against health-care reform in Colorado, she implored a crowd “to make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass.”

All this raises a question: Will Bachmann ever pay a political price for her fevered outbursts? In today’s GOP, is there such a thing as too crazy?

Obviously, the Democrats hope so, which is why there’s already lots of energy around Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District's primary race. “An extraordinary amount of money is pouring into this race very early,” says Brian Melendez, chairman of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, as the state’s Democratic Party is called. Bachmann, he says, “is not just America’s craziest congressperson, she’s also one of the least effective members of Congress. She does nothing for her district, she brings nothing home, she has no legislative accomplishments she can point to.” He adds, “I’m confident that her true colors have been displayed since the last election in a way that they have not been before.”

At first glance, Melendez’s statement seems quixotic. Last time around, Bachmann’s challenger, Elwyn Tinklenberg, raised $1 million in the days after Bachmann’s outburst about anti-American congressmen. If Bachmann could be beat, 2008 should have been the year to do it.

“You had an election with a strong trend away from Republicans toward Democrats,” says Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (and Minnesota native). “You had a reasonably attractive, not terribly weak challenger against her, who ended up, because of the notoriety that she achieved, getting fairly well funded. You had her demonstrating her embarrassing nuttiness repeatedly. And she still won.”

more...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-09-03/bachmann-for-president/full/

[DrDan]

1. incumbancy - the strongest platform

incumbants are just plain hard to defeat. She is living proof. She is simply whacky - yet still wins. Voters get into the booth - and when they know nothing about hte candidates, will ALWAYS vote for the incumbant.

I wish it were reversed. Voters would only vote for an incumbant if that person could prove to be worthy. Else - out the door.

[mediaman007]

2. She does represent the way a lot of people in her district think.

Sadly!

[saltpoint]

3. Bachmann announces a run for the White House. Crazy people from

all over send her some checks. She builds a modest coast-to-coast network of insane people to manage local grassroots support, also modest. Her appearances are characterized by her customary pathological public assertions. She shifts some, not all, focus away from Sarah Palin.

Romney and Huckabee, both nearly as wacko as Palin and Bachmann, suddenly seem cool-browed and clear-headed by comparison. GOP primary support coalesces behind these two frontrunners as Bachmann and Palin cancel each other out trying to out-crazy the other.

[peace frog]

4. Run, "Batshit" Bachmann, Run!

Just when you think election season couldn't get more entertaining than Gingrich/Palin, Bachmann enters to add an extra dash of batshit crazy to the mix.

Bring it on, baby!

[Bosso 63]

5. Bachmann is twisted and dumb as a box of rocks,

yet, she can leave office and go on the lecture circuit and make a boat load of money. It makes me wonder if she and her ilk believe the crap they spew.