End Times for Michele Bachmann?

from In These Times:


End Times for Michele Bachmann?
Hamming for the Right, without bringing home the bacon, may have put Bachmann in electoral jeopardy.

BY Theo Anderson


Michele Bachmann’s late-career incarnation as a far-Right superstar has always been a high-wire act.

Bachmann’s signature stunt is her willingness to say—loud and proud—outlandish things that make her sound, to many people, delusional. She has said, for example, that America’s founders “worked tirelessly” to end slavery. In 2009, she swatted away the pesky science of climate change by declaring that “there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.” And last summer, she claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood might be infiltrating the U.S. government and shaping our foreign policy through Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Abedin, who is of Pakistani descent, was born in the U.S. and is married to Anthony Weiner, the former Congressman from New York.

The danger of the act isn’t that Bachmann, who has been the U.S. representative from Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District since 2007, will say something so off-the-charts nutty that it discredits her with a majority of voters in the district. At this point, that may not be possible.

The danger is that she is so occupied with her crusades that she isn’t bringing home the bacon for the people of her district. Fighting threats from big government and foreign subversives is an excellent way to build your national right-wing reputation. But voters expect their representative to deliver concrete benefits as well. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/14124/is_it_the_end_times_for_michele_bachmann