Say what you will about the Iowa straw poll. (“Good-natured fraud,” says Walter Shapiro. “Not very predictive,” says Jon Stewart. “Overhyped, underwhelming,” says Michael Crowley.) But no one can deny that the event …
Michele Bachmann
Iowa’s Straw Poll Madness
Item updated below with Pawlenty campaign response
GOP primary reporters and junkies should read Walter Shapiro’s latest New Republic story (subscription required) on the absurd overhyping of Iowa’s quadrennial Republican primary straw poll, whose 2012 edition will be held in Ames on August 13. In Shapiro’s persuasive telling, the …
2012 Scramble: Who Loses If Rick Perry Gets In?
With each passing week, Texas Governor Rick Perry seems to be inching closer to a run for the presidency. His supporters have been calling around to social conservatives urging them to keep their powder dry. Conservative kingmakers have begun to discuss Perry as the only one who checks both the “conservative” and “electability” …
Michele Bachmann’s Life On and Off the Campaign Trail
A look at the Minnesota Congresswoman’s career from her days as student council president (and cheerleader) to her never-boring bid for President.
Bachmann’s Keywords: Against, Won’t, Didn’t
In a new ad set to run statewide in Iowa, Michele Bachmann concentrates on the fiscal-conservative leg of her stool. Still in the early courting stages with Hawkeye voters, she regurgitates her biography first (Iowa-born, tax lawyer, mom), and then she speaks out against the bailouts, against the stimulus and against raising the debt …
Marcus Bachmann, Mr. Mixed Blessing
According to Gallup, about 70% of Republicans know who Rep. Michele Bachmann is. As her presidential bid continues, people will also start to recognize a certain silver-haired man in her retinue: her husband, Marcus Bachmann. Last Tuesday, both the New York Times and the Washington Post ran front page-photos of the congresswoman …
How Michele Bachmann’s Surge Reshuffles the GOP Presidential Race
Last week’s Des Moines Register poll tells us — assuming nothing actually happens in Iowa over the next six months — that about 22% of the 125,000 or so Hawkeyes most likely to show up for next year’s Republican caucus will …
Nine Epically Wrong Politician History Flubs
These White House contenders give historical fiction a whole new meaning. TIME breaks down nine egregious examples of the type of revisionist flub you can expect in 2012
Could the 2012 Election Be 2004 All Over Again?
There’s been a lot of buzz inside the Beltway about how this year’s crop of GOP wannabes is strikingly similar to the Democratic cast of George W. Bush challengers in 2004.
You have a frontrunner who is playing it safe and …
Michele Bachmann, Centrist?
Most GOP candidates turn hard right in the primaries – especially nowadays with the Tea Party threatening purity tests and primary challenges of any RINO, or Republican In Name Only. But not Michele Bachmann.
Trying to Reinvent Itself Again, the Tea Party Gears Up for 2012
Like any group in its infancy, the Tea Party goes through phases. Gone, or at least temporarily shelved, are the noisy rallies, the tricorn hats, the abundant signage that marked its birth in 2009. “We are not a protest …
Bachmann Channels the Spirit of John Wayne… Gacy
Michele Bachmann rolled out her official presidential campaign Monday – not to be confused with the unofficial debate announcement two weeks ago – in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa. (When Bachmann was still a child her family moved to Minnesota, where she would eventually get elected to Congress.) Much has been made of …
Can Michele Bachmann Win the Republican Primary?
Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann formally announced her presidential candidacy on Monday morning in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, before heading on a tour of early-primary states. (Yes, she already announced her run …
