Bachmann Turnouter Overdrive

Steve Benen – The Washington Monthly

 

Politico‘s report from the event said Bachmann “stole the show” in Iowa.

Michele Bachmann served up red meat to the crowd at the Iowa conservative principles conference Saturday, slamming President Barack Obama as a Jimmy Carter retread, dissing the Mitch Daniels “truce” call for social issues, and saying she wants a “waiver” from the last two years of White House leadership.

Talking loudly and waving her hands, a pumped Bachmann used a slide presentation of various numbers — the national debt, the cost of a gallon of gas two years ago the day before Obama took office, the corporate tax rate — to make her points and pull the crowd in.

Suggesting that Iowa caucus voters had the power to halt Obama, Bachmann wrapped up her speech by asking, “Are you in? Are you in for 2012?”

“I agree with you!” she said as the crowd cheered, and added, “I’m in!”

 

 

You can watch the video — though I don’t recommend doing so on a full stomach — and you’ll notice that the Iowa crowd loved Bachmann’s nonsense, practically hanging on her every word.

In the context of the 2012 race, the next question is what kind of love we’re dealing with here. Are those right-wing activists enamored with Bachmann thinking, “I can’t wait to support her campaign” or are they thinking, “She’s terrific, but there’s no chance I’ll ever vote for her”?

Don’t assume the latter. Extremely conservative social activists tend to dominate the Iowa caucuses — radical televangelist Pat Robertson came in second in 1988, well ahead of Reagan’s sitting vice president — and may very well make Bachmann viable, at least in the first nominating contest.

Also note, the more the ridiculous congresswoman excites the base and makes bizarre remarks — yesterday Bachmann called the federal tax code a “weapon of mass destruction” — the more media attention she’ll take from other candidates who may find themselves struggling to stay in the spotlight.

If this isn’t making the GOP establishment — plus candidates like Pawlenty, Daniels, and Barbour — nervous, they’re not paying close enough attention.

 

11 comments on “Bachmann Turnouter Overdrive

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  1. She came in 4th in the straw poll, behind Cain, Pawlenty and Gingrich,
    Tpaw being kind of a splungey blanc mange, if not necessarily from the planet Skyron, in the Galaxy of Andromeda.

  2. miguel cervantes wrote:

    She came in 4th in the straw poll, behind Cain, Pawlenty and Gingrich,
    Tpaw being kind of a splungey blanc mange, if not necessarily from the planet Skyron, in the Galaxy of Andromeda.

    …coming to a primary near you as Mitt’s big competition.

    Too bad Donald Trump wasn’t in the mix to bring a little gravitas to the field.

    …the living will envy the Mondale Democrats… too bad the “lets nominate a woman” thing’s worn out, and doesn’t work anyway. They’ll probably hope that putting up Rubio or someone else who speaks Spanish (he does, doesn’t he?) as VP will give them a fighting chance…

  3. @ CK MacLeod:

    They already have a fighting chance, don’t they?

    The thing will turn on what the average voter things conditions are and are likely to be. If things seem lousy and look to stay lousy, Obama has no great accomplishment at which to point nor any reserve of great respect from which to ask for another term.

  4. @ fuster:
    Idunno, lot can happen over the course of the next year, but the perception is that the economy is recovering, and is still that the Rs destroyed it – and um by the way are extremely a-holes.

    Obama will say he saved us from Ragnarok. At least he didn’t push us into it. Obamacare may be a bigger historical accomplishment than a political plus, but I think the Rs majorly oversold their exaggerated partisanship up to the 2010 fight, and I don’t see them delivering much of anything, do you?

    The 2012 electorate ought to be a lot more Obama-friendly than 2010 was, and the actions of the 2010 R governors are looking incredibly unpopular, and in a way that highly motivates the D base.

    Incumbent presidents have a strong advantage. Dems have a demographic advantage in potential swing states. Most of all, I think the country is comfortable with Obama and thinks the Rs are chock full of nuts. Most polling I’ve seen supports it. Now that the Rs have the House, the prospect of giving them the Senate and the Prez would be a mandate for the Bush years, without the good parts. The R presidential field ranges from the comical to the really comical for a reason: It’s not a serious party, and anyone serious in the party doesn’t think they have a serious chance.

    I think the odds are higher of a landslide re-election than of a close election, with an R win a distant third, and dependent on exogenous factors.

  5. oh, hosreapples for “it’s not a serious party” those same clowns have been in running the Big House more than they’ve not in my lifetime.

    it’s a year too soon to tell what might happen in the election.

    2010 was unlikely in the extreme in 2008.

    hell, it’s still near-to-impossible to believe that Ronald Fucking Reagan was elected president.

  6. @ fuster:
    oh horseapples yerself… I started out by acknowledging it’s too early to know – it’s always too early to know until it’s past – but it’s especially too early now – then I threw my virtual joss sticks.

    Why do you think there are no serious candidates on the R side in March of the year prior, when in ’07 both parties were already busy.

    A party that’s split between the Boehners and the Bachmanns and spits out T-Paw isn’t going anywhere or doing anything against the $1 BN incumbent whose already done it once, successfully, and seems like an OK guy and not embarrassing. If he’s still in contention a year from now, then it will be “he had four years and didn’t totally screw up.” Jimmy Fucking Carter (about whom one couldn’t quite say that) was doing pretty well for re-election until the final weekend when Ronald Fucking Reagan finally closed the deal.

    Now I know you’re really hot for Michele Bachmann, but she ain’t RFR, and neither is TPaw or Mitt Making Love Romney. They’re a lot more Mondale, Dole, or Kerry – or worse, they’re more Lamar Alexander and Pete DuPont – than RFR.

  7. @ CK MacLeod:

    I don’t even remotely think that i could name a serious candidate for the R’s.

    But I usually cannot. I mentioned Reagan as a way of pointing out that a serious candidate isn’t a requirement for victory.

    Did anyone think 2000 Bush a serious candidate?

    I sorta think that Reagan for sure and the other clown probably won because folks couldn’t bring themselves to go the other way.

  8. @ fuster:
    By this time in 2007, Giuliani, McCain, Romney, and Huckabee were all already up and running, as were Obama, Clinton, and Edwards on the D side.

    By this time in 2003, Howard Dean, Joe Lieberman, and Dick Gephardt were already in. Kerry had been expected to get in for months before he finally took the leap sometime later in the year, not officially announcing until September. I think that was about it for the theoretical “first tier” of challengers – though Bush turned out to be more vulnerable than he may have looked at the time.

  9. @ fuster:
    And yeah, people thought Bush was a serious candidate – he was Gov of TX, his pappy had been Prez as you may have heard, and he had big $$$$ backing. His machine was so intimidating from early on that other potential candidates withdrew rather than face his fearsome fearsomeness. McCain entered late into a field so pathetic – Keyes, Hatch, Kasich – that Bush didn’t even bother to show up at the first debates.

  10. What is the point of spending so much money, just rotating your wheels, Bush, as you point out, announced in June, Reagan announced
    in November of the previous year, and toppled Bush who had been the front runner, Obama did announce in February, but didn’t get traction
    against Hillary, till around October, and we know now, his was not a
    ‘peoples campaign; it was financed by the leading industrialists and financiers from the start

  11. @ miguel cervantes:
    1979 was like a thousand years ago. I mean, Lincoln IIRC never announced his candidacy at all, but his people were prepared when the convention deadlocked. Anyway, Reagan had run twice before, once as a tryout, in ’76 making a serious challenge to Ford. But Connally, not Pappy Bush, had been the frontrunner/establishment choice at around this time in the process.

    I don’t exclude the possibility that a Republican Mohammed might come riding out of the East, but I don’t see him, so I’m concentrating on what I do see. The way the game is played in 2011, the absence of a first-teamers is indicative.

    I remember trying to persuade myself that the high turnout in the D primaries in 2008 didn’t really signify a D advantage, or all of the polls… or McCain’s doofus-y performances… or the Katie Couric interview…

    Sometimes it pays just to face the facts and deal with them, not over-interpret them, just deal with them.

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