Michele Bachmann Draws a Credible Opponent

My guess is that Minnesotans, who are very aware that their state is noted these days for three things - two of them being Fargo and Franken - are getting a little weary that the third thing that Minnesota is noted for is their 6th Congressional District congresswoman, Michele Bachmann, and will issue a pink slip to her come November.

She has won by single digit margins ever since she first ran for congress, with the Democratic challenger getting somewhere around 42% of the vote.

But that’s before she started opening her mouth since the last election. Opening her mouth and saying such crazy things that even Glenn Beck falls silent when he interviews her.

She is but one of 435 congress persons but she has gained national prominence by uttering outrageous statements such as:

• President Obama wants to “annihilate conservatives.”
• The United States will be “cursed” if it fails to support Israel.
• “…I am very concerned that he [Barack Obama] may have anti-American views.”
• “I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America?”
• “Carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, it is a harmless gas. Carbon dioxide is natural; it is not harmful....”
• And on health care reform: “What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing.”

But the piece de resistance is her famous quote on Fox News last year on the 2010 Census:

“Take this into consideration. If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations at the request of President Roosevelt, and that's how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps. I'm not saying that that's what the Administration is planning to do, but I am saying that private personal information that was given to the Census Bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up, in a violation of their constitutional rights, and put the Japanese in internment camps.”

The statement, completely inaccurate by the way, has become topical again as we learn that it has caused some serious blowback among the rightwing who are not turning in their census forms. Texas trails the national average of 34% compliance, with only 27% of Texas households returning the form. April 1st is the deadline.

No, Minnesotans are getting a little weary of Crazy Michele. In a poll conducted by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, 56% of Minnesotans polled admitted that they were “embarrassed” by Bachmann and her statements.

Predictably, Republicans’ responses to the poll differ wildly from Democrats’ responses, but significantly, among Independents polled, 69% felt embarrassed by Bachmann.

And even more significant, Bachmann has a credible opponent who has both an army of volunteers working for her, but also has a sizeable warchest. State Senator Tarryl Clark, who recently was endorsed by the DFL or Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, as the Democratic Party is known there, is going to give Michele Bachmann a headache or three.