She's going down swinging, with all the delusions she can muster. Today she promised Iowans she'd abolish the US tax code. (Links are below. She shoulda promised that weeks ago, if she was going to promise that. It might have made a headline back then, now it's just "nuttery in passing.")
The "big night" is the Iowa primary, of course. Now--she's had a few "big nights" in her career. Some of them haven't come off.
There was her first really "big night" back in 2007, where she was on the scheduled to speak to CPAC as "the rising, bright new, outspoken face of conservatism in Congress." But CPAC removed her name from the schedule after she told a reporter that there was "already in existence a secret plan to divide occupied Iraq with Iran, and create a new terrorist playground state." And that made her look like a nut (which she is)--so that "big night" at CPAC was cancelled.
Similarly, the briefcase full of "nut" statements she's collected over her eleven year career is probably going to cost her this "big night," in Iowa. But look:
(CONTINUED)
January 3, 2012 8:00 AM
Defiant Michele Bachmann keeps fighting for Iowa
By
Brian Montopoli
WEST DES MOINES, IOWA - Michele Bachmann isn't giving up without a fight.
After stopping in at a luncheonette, pet store and florist here on Monday, the Minnesota lawmaker implored supporters not to "settle" for one of her rivals, telling reporters she would govern "in the image and likeness of a Ronald Reagan of a Margaret Thatcher, and that's what I will do."
"My goal," she said, "is to be America's iron lady."
Nah. But she could end up being America's "iron maiden," again. Sent back to Congress, continuing to function as a right wing evangelical McCarthy--rallying the minority that skews Congress' agenda to the right, out of all proportion to its actual voting strength. Promising conservatives you'll abolish the tax code--Congress is where she can keep a national following and bully Republican leadership to the right, doing stuff like that.
She's not going to be America's "iron lady," though. Despite her claims throughout her career, she doesn't have the ideological backbone or principle for that. She's actually a follower, that's the big secret of her career as a demagogue.
Here, and elsewhere, and for years--political junkies have been telling me that Iowa doesn't mean a thing, so far as picking the eventual GOP winner goes. Strictly speaking, they're right. For example, I think this trad media take from CBS points the way for people who are just starting to follow politics:
Iowa's bad track record for picking GOP winners
By
Monika L. McDermott
It's a good introductory survey of the significance of the Iowa contest for those who don't usually follow politics day to day. (It kinda conflates the concept of "who will be the eventual GOP nominee" with the concept of "who can win the White House," but that doesn't matter so much as learning about "what Iowa can't do.")
Here's what Iowa still can do, and the CBS piece doesn't tell you this. From election to election, the contest in Iowa can tell us how crazy the GOP is going. In Iowa, this year, credible (because they're experienced in government) Republican leaders are going toe-to-toe with "no credibility" right wing demagogues. And the "no credibility" right wing demagogues are acing them out, or running even.
We're used to seeing otherwise credible politicians crawl before certain constituencies to get their votes. We're not used to seeing people in attendance scream "LET HIM DIE!" with no objection or qualification from Republican candidates for the presidency.
If you add up the votes the polls attribute to Bachmann, Paul, and Santorum--that gives you a pretty good idea about how insane the Republican Party and conservative movement within Iowa have gone in just the last five years. (They chose Huckabee over Romney last time, because Huckabee was an evangelical conservative and because Romney was a Mormon liberal Republican. But Huckabee was a more credible choice than this current crop, if only because he had actually governed.)
But now we're in a cycle where the loons control the nominating process in Iowa; where Romney and Perry and others have to do their best to sound like loons just to survive. So the loons are even loonier than the last time around. And it's claimed that that looniness (as represented by Bachmann and Santorum for example) IS conservatism. The people who recognize this loony generation AS conservatives...are the candidates and the traditional media.
But if one of these loons (Paul, Bachmann, Santorum) can't win Iowa by a significant margin and can't win the national election--then how can conservatives claim a mandate in the United States of America? Look:
1) If Romney's not a conservative (and he's not, really, he's just crawling. Romney's a big government, establishment Republican)
2) and a Santorum is the pick of the real conservatives,
3) and Santorum wins in Iowa,
4) but it's acknowledged that he can't win nationally,
...then how can conservatives (like Bachmann or Santorum or the tea party or any of these jokers) continue to claim that America's a conservative country?
(I know that this is not a surprise to many of you, this particular lie. It's accepted where I write--there's no conservative mandate. But this particular tangible Iowa electoral evidence is worth noting, worth putting on the fridge with a gold star.)
So if Romney wins in Iowa--America's not really a conservative country, because even in the Republican Party of Iowa they can't elect a "real" conservative. And if Santorum wins: America's not a conservative country, because no credible political observer thinks that Santorum can win the White House.
And it Bachmann wins tonight: I make a bundle, because I'm taking the wild, long-shot odds in Vegas against my better judgment. I should get something out of this, besides a laurel, and hearty handshake.
LINK:
Promises to abolish the US tax code.
http://earlyreturns.sites.post-gazette.com/...
LINK:
Bachmann in the bunker:
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
LINK:
Iowa's bad track record.
http://www.cbsnews.com/...