Michele Bachmann, in her new campaign fundraising ad, says, “Hi, I’m Michele Bachmann, the Republican candidate for President in 2012.” Not, “a Republican presidential candidate,” but the candidate, as in, “I’ve won all the primaries and it’s me versus Barack Obama.” While you may find this nit-picking, it speaks volumes not only about her self-perception, but also about the fact hat her campaign is imploding. Even though Bachmann recently lost her top two senior advisors, she is known to surround herself with a vast staff, and that no one caught this is emblematic of how insular they are.
In this fundraising video, Bachmann touts that she was a tax lawyer and is “a small business jobs creator.” She neglects to mention that those jobs she and her anti-gay husband have created are supported by government programs she opposes, like Medicare, and are questionable in that they run a Christian counseling service that peddles anti-gay harmful treatments.
“Last night’s debate, with its focus on the two-man battle between Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, rendered the Minnesota congresswoman a footnote,” writes Libby Copeland today at Slate. “As Weigel notes, she will try to nab the spotlight again tonight with a response to the president’s jobs speech. But so much has changed since the last time Bachmann delivered a “rogue†one-woman rebuttal to the president – remember her address back in January after the State of the Union? She was derided for the attention-grabbing ploy and for seeming to speak to the wrong camera, but her star was on the rise then, and in retrospect, that unconventional approach seemed savvy. Tonight, she may seem irrelevant.”
Copeland adds that a new Reuters article out today “reports that Bachmann felt top advisers were overriding her wishes, “not letting her make key decisions†and “staging over-slick campaign events that do not fit into her folksy style.†A source said ” they are keeping her hidden. …They are managing her to the nth degree. They are afraid she’s going to mess it up.” Another source said Bachmann felt she was being pushed to focus too much on Iowa alone, instead of developing a “national strategy.†Fundraising troubles caused by Perry’s entry into the race last month may also be causing problems, sources said.”
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