Michele Bachmann Running for President
They say anyone can grow up to be president. Michele Bachmann is apparently taking them at their word.
They say anyone can grow up to be president. Michele Bachmann is apparently taking them at their word.
CNN (“CNN Exclusive: Bachmann to form exploratory committee in June, possibly earlier“):
CNN has exclusively learned that Rep. Michele Bachmann will form a presidential exploratory committee. The Minnesota Republican plans to file papers for the committee in early June, with an announcement likely around that same time.
But a source close to the congresswoman said that Bachmann could form the exploratory committee even earlier than June so that she could participate in early Republican presidential debates.
“She’s been telling everyone early summer,” the source told CNN regarding Bachmann’s planned June filing and announcement. But the source said that nothing is static.
“If you [debate sponsors] come to us and say, ‘To be in our debates, you have to have an exploratory committee,’ then we’ll say, ‘Okay, fine…I’ll go file the forms.'”
ABC (“Palin 2.0? Bachmann Tells ABC News, ‘I’m In!’“):
Just over ten months before next February’s Iowa caucuses Sarah Palin is returning from a recent trip to Israel. But Tea Party darling Rep. Michele Bachmann is already hitting the Hawkeye state capital.
Unlike Palin, all signs point to Bachmann running for the Republican presidential nomination later this year. In an Iowa version of ABC News’ “Subway Series” shot on the Des Moines city trolley, the Minnesota Republican told ABC’s Jonathan Karl, “I’m in.”
Well, sort of.
“I’m in for 2012 in that I want to be a part of the conversation in making sure that President Obama only serves one term, not two, because I want to make sure that we get someone who’s going to be making the country work again. That’s what I’m in for,” Bachmann said.
“But I haven’t made a decision yet to announce, obviously, if I’m a candidate or not, but I’m in for the conversation.”
She said the feedback she has gotten thus far about a possible White House run has been “encouraging.” And she thinks the president is beatable.
I don’t know which is funnier: That Bachmann thinks she’s presidential material or that she’s convinced ABC and CNN that they have an exclusive.
Who needs Two and a Half Men, when we have the Presidential debates with Trump, Bachman, Palin and Romney. The Republican debates are going to be must watch teevee.
I don’t know. They’ll have to find someone _really_ smart to come up with something for those bobbleheads to debate that they actually, fundamentally disagree on.
And nobody that smart would touch this crowd of looneys with a ten-foot teleprompter.
Lord, you’ve answered my prayers! Hallelujah!
Mini-P in in, and she’s in to win! (or to get people to send her money and build her personal brand, you choose which)
This is going to be fun.
Can you imagine if by some bizarre series of events she actually won? Who knows what will happen in the Republican primaries, and in any given contest between an R and a D, the R will always get at least 25%, even if in a coma. With the right handlers, enablers, strategy (minimal talking to press), and circumstances (second recession)….
I just may vote in Virginia’s GOP Primary in 2012. This could be really fun.
@legion: I’m sensing a lot of “Raise your hand if…” parts of the debate. Aside from vast policy uniformity, some of these candidates suffer from…how to say it delicately?…mental aptitude problems. (Definitely not a negative for people looking for an SNL alternative, but it may be a little hard on anyone trying to figure out who to vote for.) Regardless, here are some suggestions:
Raise your hand if…
– you believe in evolution.
– you pray daily. (alternate: you talk to God about all your decisions.)
– you think that Barack Obama is a socialist.
– you think the U.S. can drill its way to oil independence.
– Ronald Regan is your favorite president.
– you think abortion doctors should be prosecuted.
– you own one or more guns. (I know, it’s been done before. Possible alternate: you’re packing a piece right now or had one taken by security.)
– you think city folk (alternate: people in the Northeast) are out-of-touch.
– you know one or more ex-gays.
Speaking of that last question, why no love for Fred Karger here on OTB? The guy’s actually official, which means he’s at least one step more relevant to the primaries than the Bachmanns of the world at this point.
I realize it makes some of you guys feel better about your own shortcomings to mock the intelligence of others. However, seeing as most of you voted for Obama in 2008 you don’t have much credibility in that regard. If you thought a community agitator with a few months voting “present” in the Senate was presidential material then you basically forfeited the right to criticize future candidates.
I see there are still people who believe it matters who the GOP runs for president.
It makes no difference if Bachman, Palin, Romney or whoever is the nominee on the right, nobody will be paying any attention. The sole priority for voters in 2012 will be to vote Obama out of office.
The same thing happened in 1980, with high unemployment and gas prices, low wages, failed foreign policy and a general feeling that the country was going in the wrong direction. People couldn’t get to the voting booths fast enough to get rid of Carter. No one knew or cared who was going to take his place, just so long as it wasn’t him.
Don’t bother whining about how everything that is wrong isn’t Obama’s fault, because that doesn’t matter. When the great unwashed go to the polls, they throw the bum out who’s in office.
Dream Ticket:
Don Trump and Michelle Bachmann: The Hairy and The Scarey.
Oh, and
Gosh I do hope that’s the plan.
Obama = Bachmann, LOL
jwest – a lot of people were saying the same thing about Harry Reid. Everyone thought that Vlad Lenin’s corpse could have beaten Reid in the last race. Well, the Republicans decided to nominate someone SO loony, that people just couldn’t let it happen. Bachmann is on that level of loony.
As Voltaire said, “Every night, I pray, Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And he has granted my prayers.”
largebill quacks: “…you basically forfeited the right to criticize future candidates.”
Who do you think you are claiming you can restrict the speech of American citizens?
This idea means anyone who voted for Richard Nixon, the only president to resign in disgrace, a Republican, could not voice an opinion about Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton.
You’ve got a sure winner, alright.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/24/us-libya-usa-poll-idUSTRE72N1JN20110324
Let’s see if the poll-centric OTB writes this up as a positive for Obama.
So far the polls have Obama ahead against basically everyone on the right from generic to palin to romney to newt. So if you are counting on a big backlash, one that obscures the rights incredibly weak field so far, you better hope it starts building soon. And I say that as someone who has exactly zero interest in Obama having a second term.
Tlaloc,
It’s quite possible you’re right. This could be the first election in which the voters look at each candidate independently and choose based on their prioritized list of presidential qualifications.
On the other hand, 2012 could go like every previous election and be a referendum on the incumbent. Not to say that there isn’t a contingent of people who would overlook the unemployment, record deficit and debt, increasing foreclosures and general feeling of impending doom for the country. The survey in my last comment clearly shows a solid 17% that think Mr. Obama is a great military leader, so he has that going for him.
Plus, think of how clean and articulate he is.
jwest — When Obama wins reelection by a bigger margin than in 2008, I assume you will come back here and remind us that the election was strictly a referendum on the incumbent…
I don’t see how that’s remotely true. Even deep in the koolaide conservatives have to admit that Reagan’s 1984 sweep reflected a hell of a lot on Mondale’s weakness. 1996 had a lot to do with GOP overreach and the presence of Ross Perot. 2004 had a lot to do with Kerry’s weakness as a candidate (and the despicable lies of the swiftboaters). That’s to say nothing of the presidential elections where there is no incumbent.
It seems like there hasn’t been a single case of a presidential election in recent times that was exclusively a referendum on the incumbent.
Tlaloc,
“…despicable lies of the swiftboaters…”
Everything the Swift Boat Veterans said in their ads against Kerry was true, otherwise someone would have collected $1,000,000 from T. Boone Pickens by proving it wrong.
Do you think Kerry’s military records are in the same locked file as Obama’s birth certificate?
T. Boone kept changing the requirements to get the money to the point that people just gave up… Feel free to live in your alternate reality though…
To use a couple of local examples, it really does matter. In Colorado we had an energized GOP that swept to victory even in races like Secretary of State and Treasurer where both parties thought the Dem incumbents were doing a good job.
Knowing however, that it didn’t matter who ran for office against the Democrats, that person would win, the GOP had a plaigiarist, a guy who says Obama is the worst threat America has ever seen and a guy who thought bikes were harbingers of a UN takeover for governor. End result: Dems hold the seat.
They also had te chance to pick up a senate seat against an appointed democrat who didn’t excite the Dem base and had only been in office for a few months. In response, the GOP nominated a guy who came off as a neanderthal. End result is that the Dems hold a senate seat they were expected to lose.
So yeah, it matters.
jwest has a point – macroeconomic trends are quite decisive for elections.
In 2010, voters for example tried to vote unemployment, bad moods and malaise out of office. That didn’t work – republicans prioritize turning the US into a Muslim state and repealing ChildrapeCare before jobs bills, as is clearly obvious to anyone.
Voters are low and simple creatures – if they see high gas prices, scary figures and unemployment, they try to vote it out of office by rearranging the chairs. Correlation is causation to them.
Problem is that republicans think GDP grows if you cut discretionary spending on people when there are five job seekers for every position (you think republicans are ready to touch medicare, medicaid or defense spending? Just sit on a railroad and spare yourself some pain…), that government must never invest, that tax cuts trickle down even when the economy doesn’t offer private investment opportunities and that drilling everywhere will cause gas or energy prices to go down.
Until 2012, these moral, economic and intellectual degenerates have no reason to help the economy further – because they honestly believe that sabotaging the country in order to make it vote for them out of sheer desperation is in its best interests in the long run.
As Jimmy Carter’s mom once asked, “President of what?”