“Michele Bachmann:Going Crazy”

City Pages, an alternative weekly here in Minnesota has done a write-up about Michele Bachmann, who represents the Sixth District. Many people already know her from her rants on Fox News and other national media outlets, but the City Pages story starts from the beginning, when she unseated a moderate Republican State Senator to her time in St. Paul when she showed the same crazy behavior.

I think the article is a fair represntation of Bachmann, though the writer’s characterization of the Sixth District, which stretches from the state’s Eastern border across the northern suburbs of Minneapolis-St. Paul to Central Minnesota shows his liberal bias and disdain for suburbs. What it shows is how Bachmann, like Sarah Palin has become the face of the GOP (hence, City Pages’ cover which looks like the cover to Sarah Palin’s book) and how that has some people worried and others estactic. Eva Young, who for the last several years has headed a blog on Bachmann, shares what she thinks are the main points of the cover story:

…many worry that those and similar remarks are detrimental to the national Republican Party’s credibility, which is why not everyone inside the GOP is thrilled at the prospect of Bachmann becoming the face of their party. One senior Republican strategist, speaking on condition of anonymity, concedes that there’s some trepidation within the GOP establishment.

“I can tell you she has a few quiet detractors within the Republican Party,” says the strategist. “Put it this way: There’ve been some who’ve raised an eyebrow over the things she’s said.”

Nevertheless, GOP higher-ups have shown no effort to muzzle Bachmann, which suggests she fills an important role. Looking on the other side of the political aisle, the DFL, for all its squawking about Bachmann, has benefitted financially from her ravings as well.

“There are certainly people inside the DFL who think she’s good for the party,” says Jeremy Powers, a DFL chair in Bachmann’s district. “Some think fighting for the Sixth District isn’t worth it, because the sum advantage of having her around is better than ousting her.”

It’s a point DFL Party Chair Brian Melendez concedes but doesn’t endorse.

“While obviously I like being able to raise money against Republican candidates, and while I like for there to be a convenient boogeyman like her, the price of having an ineffective representative for an entire congressional district is just too high.”

Bachmann also surprisingly took part in an interview with the City Pages that is also worth a read. It doesn’t shed any new light, but it still shows a good glimpse of the person representing the Sixth.

Crossposted at Republicans United