Bachmann’s out
Michele Bachmann announces she will not be running for re-election to her House seat. She claims it’s not because she thought she’d lose, and it’s not because of investigations into her campaign financing, but that she believes representatives should move on after a while.
Color me skeptical.
Reports are that her successor, whomever it might be, probably has a better chance of keeping the seat in Republican hands than Bachmann, who may have been ripe for the picking. Relentless attacks on her (a la Palin), and her own rather idiosyncratic political ways had earned her a reputation as fearless but somewhat of a loose cannon.
Another interpretation: she tired of the personal attacks from the libs, and decided to get out.
The seat is in an R+8 district and 2014 is not shaping up as a Democratic year. Attacks aside, I’m fairly certain that she would have held onto her seat. Kind of moot now, I suppose.
Let’s face it: Alinsky wins again. Isolate it; Personalize it. Demonize it.
Her struggles with the Inside-the-Beltway persecutors are far from over. This exacts a terrific personal toll in cost, time, and energy.
The infantry at Bastogne didn’t tell the German general “Nuts!” when he called for their surrender or face certain annihilation; their commanding general did. Bachmann is in the infantry.
So am I. At some point, one just needs to keep one’s head down and try to survive for the sake of one’s personal life.
I have liked Bachmann’s willingness to engage the left head on. However, many times she comes across as a nagging wife (As, IMO, does Hillary Clinton.) rather than a thoughtful stateswoman. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are both attack dogs who are also confronting the left head on. Maybe it is just my perception, but both of them seem much more thoughtful and grounded in their arguments. Bachmann seems to repeat slogans and clichés (Much as the left does, but she gets attacked for doing it, they don’t.) while Paul and Cruz can flesh out their arguments against the left in greater depth.
Both Paul and Cruz are on the left’s radar for the full on Palin destruction treatment. I watched the Senate committee hearings on the immigration bill last Saturday on C-Span. All the democrats were allowed to speak, but only select Republicans. Cruz demanded to be allowed to speak. You could see and feel the dem’s disdain for him. He was allowed to speak, but while he was delivering a very erudite and straightforward condemnation of the bill, the democrat senators talked noisily among themselves making a big show of ignoring what he said.
The Left gets another win. They went all in on attacking Bachmann, getting the LGBT crowd, SNL, and even a rapper to mock and deride her.
Oh, look, CAIR is quite pleased, too. They didn’t like her noticing that the State Dept. was being infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood. She was right about it, too: http://tinyurl.com/bbkebtb
Just sayin: even the shrewdest conservatives … must be constantly vigilant against allowing their opinions of candidates to be influenced by Dems/media/left; against allowing Repub candidates to be chosen by Dems/media/left (after Dems/media/left have eliminated/Alinskied the candidates whom they most fear). We exist inside a constant onslaught of cultural propaganda. Sometimes, we thoughtlessly lower our defenses, and succumb. Be vigilant! Outlaw! We are the cool rebels, and we will not give an inch to the cultural dictator “man”.
We lose a courageous voice in Congress. I hope that she won’t be completely silenced.
Neo, I am certain that you follow these things more intelligently than do I, but I have not seen that much of the “idiosyncratic'” behavior. I have heard a lot about it from the Democrats, the Media, and even some establishment Republicans. From Ms Bachmann, I mostly heard common sense that sometimes skewered those on the left to an uncomfortable degree–for those on the left and their apologists.
Odd and strident Jennifer what’s her face Rubin at the WaPo has a really smarmy item on this in which she faults Bachman’s “failure to specialize.”
More bitter and mean than the usual Rubin:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/05/29/michele-bachmann-packs-it-in/
More and more, reading Rubin is like watching a fading yenta suck a lemon.
vanderleun: I quit reading Rubin years ago. Her anti-conservatism and intellectual dishonesty taints everything else she writes.
Bachmann was a fighter. Unfortunately she damaged herself in the presidential primaries.
She’s going to ‘go Palin’ and hit the rubber chicken circuit.
She’s more valuable to the conservative cause that way, too.
Lawfare drove Palin from office — now Bachmann.
On the other side of the equation, Allred keeps mid-stream politicians out of office in the first place.
I see a trend, a campaign….
vanderleun: I think you mischaracterize Rubin’s column on Bachmann. It doesn’t come across as a lemon-sucking yenta’s screed in any way. Rather, she admits to admiring much about Bachmann but takes a clear-eyed look at what didn’t work.
I also think this is spot on:
Yes, I think she came across as shrill, especially to her opponents, which made her easier to attack. She’s very, very bright, but there is that ability to speak in public once more. You almost have to be an extrovert these days to seek public office.
Ann, fascinating that Rubin cites McCain’s specialization in foreign policy as an example of how a member of Congress should approach the job, since I consider McCain, despite all of his alleged expertise, to be wrong at least as often as he is right.
Rubin is disingenuous, at best, when she calls Bachmann foolish. She is certainly self-serving. Often being attacked by media is precisely an indication that you are right in a conservative sense.
I guess what Rubin, along with others, really means is that Bachmann should have been more of a McCain style maverick; that is one who attacks their own party.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/05/michele-bachmann-calls-it-quits.php
A nice and deserved goodbye from the Powerline folks.
Rubin thinks her career should serve as a warning. REALLY. It should serve as a template. She never lost a race, was honest and forthright over political (aka theatrical), and will go on to well deserved things.
I think I detect the sniff of envy.
I never was a big Bachmann fan. She is quirky and makes many mistakes. But, she is courageous and her zeroing in on the invited inclusion of radical islamists in the realm of the messiah was inside the bullseye.
“Relentless attacks on her (a la Palin), and her own rather idiosyncratic political ways had earned her a reputation as fearless but somewhat of a loose cannon.”
The attacks worked because the Left is vicious and the right is cowardly.
She is a “loose cannon” because people said things like, “She’s a loose cannon”.
Bachmann and Palin are what feminists always said women could be. Now we know that “feminists” were not the least interested in women at all. That was a ruse. They are interested in making more money and destroying men and often both. The rest is total unadulterated complete and perfect hogwash.
KLSmith, 3:09 pm: “Bachmann was a fighter. Unfortunately she damaged herself in the presidential primaries.” Yes.
I liked Michele Bachmann a LOT when she’d go one-on-one with Sean Hannity on my drive home from work back east. I remember a few of these. I liked her and I wanted to love her, but that was not meant to be.
Others here (especially Ann, 4:27 pm) have detailed her problems. Michele Bachmann simply was not ready for prime time — like Sarah Palin (truth be told). Both are very bright, very capable women, and both of whom I liked and wanted to love (politically). But intellectual and emotional honesty just wouldn’t let me do it.
Both were skewered, most often unfairly, by the enemedia. But that does not mitigate the fact that they were not ready for the limelight, for the vetting, much less for the proctological examination the enemedia had waiting for them.
http://pjmedia.com/andrewklavan/2013/05/29/sorry-to-see-michele-bachmann-go/
Sorry to See Michele Bachmann Go
Andrew Klavan
PJMedia.com
May 29th, 2013 – 11:04 am
Once, when I was attending a David Horowitz Freedom Center event – in Florida, I think it was – I wandered into a private meeting between Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and a handful of the center’s big donors. I can’t remember why they let me stay. I think I agreed to clean out the ashtrays or something. Anyway, it was fairly early in Obama’s first term and Michele was outlining her views on the economy and what she considered the proper Republican response to the onslaught of tried-and-false government solutions coming out of the administration.
The woman I heard speaking in that room was as sharp as any politician I’ve ever heard, and a lot sharper than most. Concise, realistic, clear-eyed, strategic – and with a grasp of economic realities that made the president look just plain stupid, which I don’t believe he is.
She was brave too. In the speech she had given at the event, she said, in effect, “Why should we be afraid of expressing our opinions? We’re the ones in the right!” I shouted out, “Sing it, sister!” Which is not like me. But how true is that? Let me help you: it’s very true. And she was as good as her word in the House.
Look, I won’t pretend I agree with her on every issue. I’m to the left of her socially – and certainly, where she sees a homosexual menace threatening the nation, I see gay colleagues, relatives and friends and wish them well.
But our dishonest media used her social opinions and a few meaningless gaffes to depict her as some sort of crazed extremist. She’s not. She’s a smart, tough lady with more sense in her head than any six Nancy Pelosis and more integrity, I suspect, than a dozen Harry Reids. I’m not sure why she’s decided not to run for another term, but I admire her and like her and I’m sorry to see her go.
I haven’t had a particularly good opinion of Bachman since she attempted (with other Republicans) to form a political advocacy group misusing the term “Tea Party” and which, since, has been used as fodder for the Left for all manner of misrepresentations of what the Tea Party movement is *actually* all about.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Don Carlos,
“Let’s face it: Alinsky wins again. Isolate it; Personalize it. Demonize it.”
Quoted for truth. And they are able to achieve that goal by means of their near-monopoly on the media.
I’m compelled, as always, to compare the GOP’s brain-racking as to the appropriate message with the same by the people responsible for my country’s PR effort. In both cases, I say: It’s good and fitting to think about the best message you can convey, but you mustn’t lose sight of the reality that there’s an enemy media blockade that means even the best message won’t be allowed to get out. That’s in addition to the fact that this enemy near-monopoly on the media is instrumental to their drip-drip-drip indoctrination of the public as well as swift demonization of targets like Palin and Bachmann (and my entire country).
The trouble is, all legal ways of dislodging the ProgLeftist stranglehold on the media are too slow. I wish I knew of a way that’s both legal and quick, since I’m done waiting for Godot to save the day.
Maybe this makes me a bad person to some, but I prefer my conservative leaders to be right on most of the issues, and effective in their leadership abilities. No politician is always right or firm on every issue, I don’t expect that. But successful politicians either convince a number of the public to change their own position on a particular issue, or manipulate legislation or a political moment to give advantage to their own side while disadvantaging the opposing side.
Michelle Bachmann’s conduct in Congress won her few friends and the distrust of even some allies. She was a showboat for the cameras and quite strongly outspoken in ways that pleased her partisans but did nothing to convince the undecided, much less her opponents. She was anything but a workhorse in committees or caucuses, and as Jennifer Rubin notes, did not attach herself to an issue in which she could make a difference.
As such, she limited her influence in Congress and the country as a whole, which meant that she did little to advance a conservative agenda in the real world, outside of speeches and television appearances. Which is a shame, because she had the potential to be so much more, with a little application and patience and focus.
Don Carlos,
It is not only the media bashing her constantly. It’s decent people who don’t stand up for her and shout the bad guys down.
Restraint, in that case, is not a virtue. It is a cooperation with evil out of cowardice or laziness or opportunism.
Not standing up for a person like her when she is attacked? There is noting good about that. Nothing. People should be ashamed.