It looks like Rep. Michele Bachmann who seemingly threw her history book in the trash is about to throw her hat into the 2012 Presidential nomination ring: : CNN reports that she’s forming an exploratory committee for the 2012 Republican nomination — a phrase that is taken to be a buzzword for someone who’s running but not ready to formally announce yet:
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.'”Three GOP presidential primary debates are planned before and during early June: The first one on May 2 at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California and another on May 5 in South Carolina. CNN plans a GOP presidential primary debate in New Hampshire in early June.
Meanwhile, CNN has also learned that Iowa Republican state Sen. Kent Sorenson will likely be hired to be Bachmann’s political director for the state – and that Bachmann aides hope to have a complete team together for Iowa by this weekend.
The AP report on Bachmann notes that some other key sources confirm: she’s likely to go for it.
One factor that may be overlooked in some reports is this: the fact that she is all but announcing that she’s going to run is yet another sign of how far former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has fallen in terms of being someone considered to be a serious and viable contender for the 2012 Presidential nomination.
If she had still been the Republican rock star sucking up all of the oxygen and the tea at the Tea Party, Bachmann would balk.
But Palin’s numbers have been going south faster that retired seniors in New York flying to Florida in September.
Bachmann is such a quote machine that she will be ensured press coverage — plus lots of face time on Fox News, “interviews” (in reality p.r.) with Sean Hannity.
She will be a Tea Party favorite and will likely battle it out with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who is all but dressing himself in a tea cup costume to win over the Tea Party vote.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.