Last week, Michele Bachmann won the presidential straw poll at The Awakening, a religious and social conservatives’ convention where the Minnesota Republican Congresswoman and Tea Party Caucus leader was scheduled to speak. Bachmann came in first with 23.3%, followed by Mike Huckabee at 22.82%, Newt Gingrich at 21.36%, Ron Paul at 11.65%. Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, and Haley Barbour, in that order, all lost to “Other.” Suffice it to say, religious conservatives are not adept at picking who will actually win the Republican nomination.
Read: “Shutdown Looming, Top House Tea Party, GOP Reps Head To Religious Convention“
The Awakening, an annual event held at and sponsored by the radical right-wing religious Liberty University, featured members of anti-gay organizations and several members of Tony Perkins’ certified anti-gay hate group, Family Research Council — including Perkins himself — along with presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich, controversial and anti-gay conservative Virginia Attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, Bishop Harry Jackson, twice-failed GOP Chair candidate Ken Blackwell, O’Keefe & Co. video conspiracist and Planned Parenthood opponent LilaRose, World Net Daily CEO and birther Joseph Farah, GOProud basher Cleta Mitchell, neoconservative Frank Gaffney, and anti-DADT repeal advocate Elaine Donnelly.
But thanks to the budget showdown, Bachmann canceled at the last minute. The presidential aspirant and extreme homophobe did manage to take a few large swipes at Democrats.
“The problem is that the truths that all of us are fighting for are no longer as valued in our society as they once were,†Bachmann said. “What an arrogant corrupt Washington elite right now is about to do is to substitute their own values for ours. They believe that social progress is generated here from the base of the Potomac River and that they somehow have the solutions to the problems that our country faces. … They have declared war on marriage, on families, on fertility, and on faith,” reported Sofia Resnick of The Washington Independent.
Bachmann, who recently claimed, “Social conservatism is fiscal conservatism,” has been fast at work on the campaign circuit. Stay tuned for more updates.