The ever-quotable, news-generating Rep. Michele Bachmann rocked the political and new and old media worlds with the announcement that she will not be running for re-election. Here’s just a cross section of reaction to her announcement:
—The Daily Beast’s John Avlon has (as usual) a post that needs to be read in full. A small chunk:
Our long national nightmare is over.
Well, that’s overstating it. But the congresswoman who represented the worst of modern American politics more than she ever tried to represent her Minnesota constituents has announced that she will not run for reelection.
Michele Bachmann is done….
She wants the world to know that “this decision was not impacted in any way by the recent inquiries into the activities of my former presidential campaign or my former presidential staff. It was clearly understood that compliance with all rules and regulations was an absolute necessity for my presidential campaign.”
In a word: bullshit. The Office of Congressional Ethics investigation into her presidential campaign that was first disclosed by The Daily Beast is due to release its initial report soon. If it looked like Bachmann would be vindicated, she would have persisted in running for a congressional seat that had been gerrymandered to increase of her chances of representing a state that looks primed to easily reelect Al Franken to the Senate….
And his kicker:
She degraded national debate, consistently chose fearmongering over facts, and exhibited every impulse of the demagogue and the ideologue. If she ever bothered to do her homework, she could have been dangerous. Instead Bachmann will stand as a sad cautionary tale, a curious footnote used to explain the reality-show auditions of the 2012 GOP presidential primaries, now all part of her reel tape as she attempts to get what she always really wanted: a Fox News contract.
—Democratic strategist James Carville:
Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville predicted on Wednesday that Republicans throughout the country would be “relieved” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has decided to retire.
“Sad day,” Carville quipped on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” when host Joe Scarborough mentioned Bachmann’s retirement.
“It makes me so sad and you so happy, Joe,” Carville said later. “God closes one door for Michelle Bachmann and opens three to Louie Gohmert. Everybody in a political party feels some sense of: ‘God, why can’t these people just shut up?’ We have many of them in the Democratic party that I’m not going to name right now, but I do think there are a lot of Republicans that are going to be relieved that some of these fringe people decide to pursue a speaking career.”
This is somewhat of a surprise. There have been rumors that she’s considering a run against Al Franken, but I don’t see her winning a statewide race in Minnesota. There are reports of several investigations involving the finances of her ill-conceived 2012 presidential run which may have been a factor in her decision, although she claims not. Still, she probably would have won re-election to her Congressional District had she run, regardless of Graves’ musings. She won (barely, to be sure) in 2012 with Obama at the top of the ticket, but should have had an easier time in 2014 without Obama’s campaign machine driving up Democrat turnout and she’d have an increasingly unpopular Obamacare to run against. And let’s not forget about Obama’s scandals which may further depress Democrat turnout. Maybe there’s another shoe about to drop? Who knows.
–-Dave-Dr-Gonzo on Alan Colmes lively site:
Yesterday, numerous news outlets and blogs reported that a study by PolitiFact found Bachmann to be one of the most dishonest pols in the Beltway. Naturally, dishonesty is never a reason for GOPers to drop out, but the news comes just a week after reports that the FBI is probing Bachmann’s campaign finances.
Bachmann’s retirement will make it harder [for Democrats] to win this seat, not easier.
Still, I suppose the demise of Bachmann’s career is a good thing. She is a charlatan and, apparently, a crook, and we need fewer of those things in Congress. The Senate has already been infiltrated by teabaggers like Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul, and they are in the process of turning the upper chamber into a parody of a deliberaive body. I am relieved that Rep. Steve King isn’t running for Tom Harkin’s seat. I am hopeful that whichever lunatic wins the Republican nomination for senate in Georgia will prove too insane for the Georgia general electorate. With any luck, we may be able to look back and see the highwater mark for crazy in the rearview mirror.
—American Thinker’s Rick Moran:
In fact, we don’t know why she isn’t running because she didn’t say. What seems clear is that a race for governor or senator is not out of the question – or even another try for the presidency.
She will no doubt be a popular dinner speaker on the GOP circuit so making a living won’t be a problem. And although her profile will be reduced, count on Bachmann to continue to make headlines with controversial statements that will remind people she’s still around and kicking.
The Republican party has not heard the last of Michele Bachmann.
—The always perceptive Doug Mataconis:
There really isn’t anywhere else for Bachmann to go politically, polling statewide in Minnesota show her being mostly a non-factor outside of her own district, so I don’t expect this to be the beginning of a bid or higher office. Instead, I expect we’ll see Bachmann showing up on the speaking circuit and following in the footsteps of other failed conservative politicians and showing up on Fox News. In any case, I doubt she’ll be out of the media completely so I’m sure we’ll be treated to her special brand of bizarre for some time to come.
—NBC’s First Thoughts puts it into perspective in two items:
** Bachmann’s surprise:A word of warning to anyone thinking about 2016: Running for president doesn’t always help your political career. After unsuccessful presidential bids in ’04 and ’08, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) later found himself without a congressional seat. After he finished sixth in the ‘08 Iowa caucuses — after moving his family to the state — Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) saw his popularity in his state plummet and decided not to run for re-election. And after briefly running for president in 2008, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) lost a Senate race four years later. And now you can add Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who like Dodd finished sixth in Iowa in 2012, to this list. “After a great deal of thought and deliberation, I have decided next year I will not seek a fifth congressional term,” she said in a video message on her website. She added, “Be assured, my decision was not in any way influenced by any concerns about my being re-elected to Congress… And rest assured, this decision was not impacted in any way by the recent inquiries into the activities of my former presidential campaign or my former presidential staff.”
AND:
*** And her surprising explanation: But it’s hard to buy that explanation. For one thing, she BARELY won re-election last year. Per MSNBC.com’s Jessica Taylor, she beat her Democratic opponent by just 4,296 votes — even as Mitt Romney won this suburban Twin Cities seat by 15 percentage points. And that opponent, Jim Graves, had already announced he was going to challenge her again in 2014. What’s more, Bachmann already began airing a TV ad THIS MONTH for her re-election — some 17 months before Election Day 2014. Politically, Bachmann’s decision not to run for re-election is bad news for Democrats. Why? She’s probably the only Republican who’s at risk of losing that congressional seat. MSNBC’s Taylor adds that Bachmann’s district was drawn to be the most Republican district in the state; in 2008, McCain got 55% percent, while Bush took 58% in 2004. Yet Bachmann consistently underperformed the top of the ticket, though Democrats were never able to topple the congresswoman.
—Politifact notes how busy Bachmann kept them and gives examples, then notes:
At this point, Bachmann’s record on the Truth-O-Meter skews toward the red. We’ve rated 15 statements Pants on Fire, 21 False, 8 Mostly False, 6 Half True, 4 Mostly True and 5 True (see them all).
Bachmann isn’t leaving immediately, however, so we will keep the Truth-O-Meter turned on.
—The Washington Monthly’s Ed Kilgore:
Like any left-of-center political writer, I’ve appreciated Bachmann’s hijinks over the years, not just because of her ability to bring The Crazy like no one else, but because she really did complicate the lives of those who wanted to neatly divide today’s radicalized conservative movement into secular and religious “wings,” or treat the Tea Party as something new and different from yesterday’s extremists. She was probably the first nationally prominent pol to consistently label herself as a “constitutional conservative,” a self-identifying term that is still growing like topsy in usage and may well become ubiquitous on the Right before long, despite or perhaps because of its arrogance and its assertion of eternally valid governing models and cultural standards from the distant past. I’ll probably never be able to hear that particular dog whistle blow without thinking of Michele Bachmann. She was a forerunner in a lot of ways, God help us.
In eight minutes and 40 seconds, with upbeat music playing in the background, Bachmann goes through a list of things she has done or tried to do and wrongs she thinks the Obama administration has rained down on the U.S. and the world, and warns about the “ultimate risk of the destruction of our entire economic system.”
And while she doesn’t really explain her decision, she knows how it will play in the press: “I fully anticipate the mainstream liberal media to put a detrimental spin on my decision not to seek a fifth term,” Bachmann concludes. But here she’s probably wrong. There’s nothing the mainstream liberal media would like better than for the highly quotable Rep. Bachmann to continue talking to the mainstream liberal media. What other rank-and-file House member, after all, would get this level of attention for simply announcing her retirement?
—The National Journal’s Reid Wilson:
And while Bachmann remained the poster child for the Tea Party label, especially to liberal media outlets in search of a boogeyman, other more conservative members have risen to greater prominence, in both the House and Senate.
Her political troubles made her one of the few members of Congress who would be more difficult for her party to defend than an open seat would be. That is, Republicans would rather run a fresh candidate without Bachmann’s baggage than try to defend her suburban Twin Cities district. In 2012, Mitt Romney took 56.5 percent of the vote in Bachmann’s district; Bachmann eked out a win over Democrat Jim Graves by just 1.2 percentage points, or about 4,300 votes.
Bachmann may have been the loudest member of the class of 2006, the one who inspired the most heated arguments. But she will hardly be the most consequential; her enduring legacy may be the lessons she taught in how to lose friends and become completely uninfluential.
With her exit, Democrats lose a potent fundraising tool. Republicans lose a headache they would just as soon do without.
The Republican Party has been overtaken by an army of Bachmann clones just as crazy as she is.
Nor will Bachmann likely disappear from the public stage. She’ll simply pull off the Sarah Palin grift, moving effortlessly from elected office to some wingnut welfare sinecure on Fox News, The Blaze or elsewhere. That’s the modern conservative movement in a nutshell: the Elmer Gantrys, the corporations that fund them, and the rabid aging flock of white wool sheep who follow them in the hope of repealing the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution and empathy in general. It little matters if the hucksters walk the halls of Congress, the conservative media, or the boardroom. It’s all for one and one for all.
The video doesn’t really give an explanation other than Bachmann simply doesn’t want to return to the House. It’s possible that she may be eyeing the Senate race against Al Franken — and since practically no one else is, she’d probably win the nomination by default if she chose. If that’s the case, why bother retiring now? She could wait for the moment that she wants to jump into the race to announce that she’s shifting to the Senate without the formal retirement announcement.
Plus, while Bachmann has done well in CD-6, she’s not that strong in the rest of the state. Minnesotans won’t elect a conservative firebrand to statewide office any time soon, as much as we might hope that Bachmann’s fundraising and name brand might carry her over the finish line. Bachmann is too smart a politician to not know this. She might do better in a gubernatorial bid against Mark Dayton, but that’s just a matter of degree rather than a different outcome.
Perhaps she’s hoping to focus on grassroots activism, where she has shined and which propelled her to a serious bid for the Republican presidential nomination. If so, the ground should be favorable in 2014, and the Tea Party groups ready to make a bigger impact. Bachmann found a true national constituency in the Tea Party, and that would give her a way to push for change from the outside as a leader rather than on the inside, where Republicans rebuffed her bid to join the House leadership. Don’t expect that we’ve seen the last of Michele Bachmann.
—The Washington Post’s Sean Sullivan:
In addition to all of the controversial statements Bachmann has made over the years, federal investigators have been drawn to allegations of improprieties in her 2012 presidential campaign. In March, word surfaced she had come under scrutiny from the Office of Congressional Ethics. She was also reportedly in talks to settle a lawsuit involving allegations of a stolen e-mail list of home-school families. The bottom line is that even if no wrongdoing whatsoever could be tied to Bachmann, having the word “investigation” even remotely linked to one’s political activities isn’t helpful.
Bachmann’s 6th district is the most conservative in the state. Mitt Romney carried 56 percent of the vote there in 2012, yet the congresswoman narrowly won reelection by a bit more than one point over Democrat Jim Graves, even as she dramatically outspent him. Simply put, this is fertile ground for Republicans in a standard R versus D race. But Bachmann, of course, is not a standard Republican, which is why she almost coughed up a seat in a district with a conservative tilt.
Graves, a hotel magnate, announced last month that he would run again this cycle, giving Democrats an early start in their quest to unseat the conservative lawmaker. National Democrats early took notice of Graves’s campaign and so did Bachmann. The congresswoman launched an ad buy well in advance of the election — an unconventional move, and one that suggested a sense of vulnerability.
But now, Graves does not have the luxury of running against a wounded opponent. And he faces an uphill climb given the district’s partisan tilt.
–Daily Kos offers 40 of Bachmann’s most “amazing moments.”
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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.