If Michele Bachmann runs…
…for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, will she split some of the Palin-hatred and deflect it onto herself? Or will she magnify it?
I’ve noticed that, although Bachmann has a smaller public profile than Palin, she taps into some of the same virulence as Palin, for somewhat similar (although also somewhat different) reasons. Like Palin, she’s not afraid to speak her mind, and is very conservative. Like Palin, she’s a Tea Party favorite. Like Palin, she’s got five children.
And like Palin, she’s a very attractive woman, a brunette with long hair, a style that used to be a no-no for politicians but is now not uncommon. But unlike Palin, she has a law degree, which makes her more immune–although hardly completely resistant—to the charges of “dummy.”
They’ll come up with something else. Reagan was stupid (or senile), Bush (the first) was a wimp, W was stupid (or a nazi), Palin is stupid (or unsophisticated).
They’ll call her names so as to avoid talking about unemployment and how we’re going to pay for the debt (i.e. higher taxes). Same thing they do with all prominent Republicans.
Anyone who witnessed MSNBC’s disgusting treatment of Michelle on the night of the midterms knows that she’s not immune to being Palinized. They’ve already started. I’m sure the writers at SNL are hard at work as we speak.
The media will try to destroy any Republican candidate, and they will relish the process even more if it’s a woman.
No American conservative woman politician is immune to being called a dummy. They are either, according to the left- “dummies” or “nutcase/reactionary” if there isn’t any evidence to suggest that they are these things, evidence is produced whole cloth. Witness the left gleefully trotting out the story that Palin thought Africa was one country. Can anyone who isn’t a hard core liberal actually think that Palin, a politician and former journalism major doesn’t know that Africa is a continent made up of many countries?!! Good grief. I suppose because there were not many high profile Conservative women around before Palin, that I was aware of as a former liberal, I didn’t realize the absolute misogyny of the “tolerant and loving” left. I’m a DINO. The party so repels me I might as well just sign up as a Republican.
Both Bachman and Palin are excellent people. Either one would do 100X better job as President than Obama.
I am sticking to my prediction: President Palin will be inaugurated in 2013.
She is, practically speaking, in striking distance of Obama already. In the recent Zogby poll where everyone is talking about Christie (who has said over and over he is not running), she trails Obama 45-38%.
The takeaway from that two years out, after ALL Palin has been through, is that he could not get half the people to say they’d vote for him in a one-on-one with her. 16% said they’d vote “neither”.
If she declares, she will gain points right there. people will give her something for merely having the moxie to get in. No one will be laughing her off anymore. If she makes any more positive movement, again after ALL the negs, it will look like a veritable wave in her favor as we move into election year.
At the worst it would be a horse race. At best, she routs him or he doesn’t even run for fear of losing to a ‘girl’.
Bachmann is already solidly entrenched as an idiot at this “moderate” (lol) site: http://themoderatevoice.com/97146/michele-bachmann-for-president/
Amongst several things to like about Bachmann, this: she is a natural on camera (natural exuberance!) + cameras love her. Her naturalness is likely due to lack of excessive narcissism + plus knowing what she believes. She doesn’t have to remember this week’s spin. She is confident she can, in any moment, effectively articulate her true values and philosophy. Put it all together: she’s a dangerous woman for Dems. Even if she never comes near being elected, she will (imo) be an effective spokesperson for small government.
Re POTUS 2012, I’m sticking with my initial prediction: Sarah v Hillary, and who knows who will win? Never before will two politicians with such high negatives have faced off against each other.
Re POTUS 2012, I’m sticking with my initial prediction: Sarah v Hillary, and who knows who will win? Never before will two politicians with such high negatives have faced off against each other.
Palin – Lieberman 2012!
Palin/Lieberman v Clinton/Crist
Can anyone who isn’t a hard core liberal actually think that Palin, a politician and former journalism major doesn’t know that Africa is a continent made up of many countries?!!
At least she doesn’t think that they speak African.
Palin – Lieberman 2012!
No Lieberman. No way. Sorry. Although I respect Lieberman’s principled stand, we need a conservative, not a liberal who broke with the other liberals over one (albeit very important) issue.
I have qualms about Palin generally, and think she’s best suited to liberal gadfly. God does she drive the leftists nuts!
Christie is still my frontrunner. If Fred Thompson had more fire in the belly, he’d be in there too.
1. I saw video of Bachmann speaking to a Christian political group. God picked out her husband. God told her to run for office. God told her to run for Congress.
I’d vote for Palin before I’d vote for Bachmann, and heaven knows I’m no longer a fan of Palin.
2. Maybe Bachmann has reason to think that Palin is not running.
Wow, a law degree makes someone not-a-dummy?
I respect the intelligence of people who make it without having to use a degree much more than people who make it but require the degree to do it. Not that Palin is or is not either of these people.
A degree should be irrelevent in measuring anything about a person. It’s what they do after or without the degree that is important. Case in point – the POTUS compared to the former Gov of Alaska.
Speaking as a multiple-degree’d engineer.
Bachmann trumps Palin, but neither one stands up to a Thatcher. Conservatives need to not only win the Presidential election, but also carry the day with convincing economic arguments that sway everyone except the die-hard progressives who will never see the light.
Michelle Bachman should create more rage, fear, and loathing amongst the left than Palin. She’s more articulate, experienced, and Christian. Palin has quite the libertarian bent, a “live and let live” attitude on issues that Bachman doesn’t. (Note the latest Tammy Bruce re-tweet by Palin.)
Bachman was a signer of a December 6, 2010 letter from the Congressional Prayer Caucus to Obama that reminded him that our national motto is “In God we Trust,” and not “E pluribus unum.” The letter also upbraided Obama for leaving out the word “Creator” when quoting the Declaration of Independence as well as incorrectly saying we are unified under one flag instead of under God.
But although Bachman should rate higher on the hate scale, she doesn’t and that is most likely a point of not being deserved but of circumstance. If she does run for President, the spears and arrows will certainly be launched, but I doubt if they will plant as well as they have with Palin.
Sadly, the Democrats and MSM have already targeted her for derision and it usually is about how crazy she is. Chris Matthews called her a zombie just this week.
If you look back at the way the MSM/liberal bloggers covered the female Republican candidates in the 2010 election, they pretty much label all of them crazy with a little snark about their intelligence on the side.
The Left will go apoplectic when some leading person from the Right challenges the very narrative that the Left religiously adheres to. If Marco Rubio were to run for Prez in 2012, the attacks would be especially savage because the Left simply wouldn’t be able to tolerate that the first Hispanic presidential potential came from the Right and not the Left. The attacks would be super mega savage if someone like Nikki Haley or Condi Rice ran. A minority AND a woman all in one! The humanity!!
Bachmann falls into this category as well. The Left, not being able to accept that the first woman Prez could be a conservative, would almost certainly do to Bachmann what it’s done to Palin.
Mark in Portland: I’m referring to the people who attack Palin for not having impressive enough academic credentials, as well as not having that lawyer-like way of speaking.
The amazing fact about the Left’s hate is that it can be focused in an instant on any one who disagrees with them. Like switching on a light.
Regardless who the Tea Party/Republicans nominate they will in for the same public derision. The Left will find some little something that will allow them to despise them. Even if the reason is self-conflicted. Do you suppose Bill Clinton noticed how fast that Navy Captain was gone?
By the way, speaking of Palin, another blog I read, Legal Insurrection, frequently publishes photos of Left Wing bumper stickers. During the ’08 election they ran a photo taken in an Oregon church parking lot. A parishioner’s bumper sticker said, “She’s not a woman, she’s a Republican” And that’s all they need to know.
Wow, a law degree makes someone not-a-dummy?
Not a chance, especially for minorities. Back in the day, the president of the Black Law Students Association at Berkeley flunked half a dozen courses, and an attempt to boot him caused the whole place to erupt. But professional schools generally are loath to kick anyone out because doing so creates a tuition void that cannot be filled.
The same thing even occurs in science grad schools sometimes when a student has external money that pays, e.g., foreign rate tuition.
I saw a video recently of Chris Matthews and Eugene Robinson berating Bachmann because she was named to the House Intelligence Committee. You see, it’s just so funny and ironic that someone like Bachmann who lacks intelligence would be named to the Intelligence Committee. Har, har, har.
Matthews also invited her to be a guest on his show on election night, then treated her like crap during the interview. That Matthews is one very classy dude.
As others have pointed out, whoever decides to run for president as a Republican will be ignorant, dumb, stupid, extreme, unsuitable. Whatever.
But Bachmann is especially vulnerable because she’s got a perfect lifetime ACU voting score of 100. She’s a conservtive’s conservative. The Democrat-Media Complex will be coming after her with everything they’ve got to destroy her candidacy.
gs
The issue is not whether or not a Supreme Being told Michelle Bachmann to do something, the issue is: does Michelle Bachmann make good decisions. Does Michelle Bachmann make good choices?
I have never been a churchgoer. My parents were not churchgoers. I have seen enough fools make poor decisions who never claimed that the Supreme Being guided their decisions to get all bent out of shape from someone who claims that “God told me.”
I repeat: the issue is whether or not she makes good decisions.
Bingo, Gringo. 🙂
I had no idea she was 54. Her Wiki page lists her birth year as 1956. I thought she was in her 40s.
Palin has executive experience. Bachmann doesn’t. That’s akey qualification for the job (although Obama was elected without any, he’s got the MSM backing and the left doesn’t seem to think experience matters).
Jed said: “The amazing fact about the Left’s hate is that it can be focused in an instant on any one who disagrees with them. Like switching on a light.”
Indeed – that strikes me as so un-American. The Orwellian 2 minute hate scares the heck out of me, and this is replicated on a smaller scale by those that should know better (meaning regular Dem voters).
It scares me because I know that down deep, those same people would hate me for my views. I was once in a car with some liberals in their 20s (work related – we’re consultants). We pulled up behind a pickup truck that had an NRA sticker on it. They went off on them.
I was so shocked that I was left speechless (which is rare for me). I became a life member of the NRA before I had ever touched a gun…. Had they substituted what they were saying about the NRA guys with the Twain-word, it would have been a verbal lynching. That marked the end of my friendship with those co-workers….
Her background was as a tax lawyer, but activism related
to the local schools, was what led her into public office.
Gringo, of course results are important, but the processes by which a candidate operates also matter to me.
Jed said: “The amazing fact about the Left’s hate is that it can be focused in an instant on any one who disagrees with them. Like switching on a light.”
That is one of the best summing up of the mind of many liberals as I have ever seen.
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The first female leaders of countries always seem to be conservative…
I think Bachmann maybe running a good thing. It makes it harder to treat Palin like she’s a freak exception to the rule rather than part of a powerful political and cultural trend.
“But unlike Palin, she has a law degree, which makes her more immune—although hardly completely resistant–to the charges of “dummy.””
I note that a lot of Congresscritters have law degrees. Judging by their output, holding a law degree DEMANDS a charge of “dummy”.
No one who voted for Barry O. has any standing whatsoever to criticize any other candidate’s intelligence. It was obvious from the first moment of his campaign that he was an idiot – and his performance in office has demonstrated that many times over.
Even though I mentioned it first, I think we may be overstating the impact of MSNBC/Chris Matthews. Their ratings are in the toilet, and will probably get even lower over the next two years. They only appeal to the crazies who wouldn’t vote (R) if a reincarnated Abraham Lincoln entered the race.
The bigger problem in my opinion is the pop culture wave of bias facing the candidate (whoever it is). I believe when the message is sent by SNL/Jon Stewart/MTV/etc it can burrow deeper into the minds of impressionable voters, especially the young ones. Because it’s so relentlessly delivered, yet disguised as “entertainment” and not “news,” the “Palin/Bachmann/Random (R) Candidate is a Fool” meme becomes “common knowledge” for them. In ’08 the media literally made it “uncool” to support McCain/Palin. When the people who actually check the “real” news to verify this belief and see “news” broacasters on ABC/CBS/NBC backing it up 100%, it becomes a set-in-stone fact in their minds.
I’m afraid in 2012 the media assault on the Republicans will be worse than it was in ’08. They’ve been biased for a long time, but they saw how well their Let’s-Not-Even-TRY-to-Be-Impartial Plan worked last time, so they’ll REALLY turn on the hate, especially if Obama’s poll numbers are low. We have to hope that the majority of voters will have figured them out by then.
I’d like to see a nationwide billboard campaign by the GOP featuring the huge faces of different prominent MSM talking heads with the caption “Why couldn’t this man/woman be honest with you about the radicalness of our President?”
For insight go to msmknowswhatsgoodforu.com
I live in MN but not in Bachmann’s district. Locally, the progs have a special hatred for her, inflamed all the more because she was a phenomenally good fund raiser and, as a woman, contradicts much of the conventional prog wisdom: religious, pro-life, unabashedly patriotic. The DFL party put a cookie cutter female liberal against her in the general election and Michelle kicked ass.
“The amazing fact about the Left’s hate is that it can be focused in an instant on any one who disagrees with them. Like switching on a light.”
No doubt the “journolist” has been replaced.
I like her a lot, and even sent a donation to her. I still have a very bad feeling about the upcoming Presidential election, and anyone running against the dirty, corrupt Chicago machine. A second term will devastate this country.