Miss America: The U.S. Presidential Race

A wrap-up of the story of the GOP candidate Michele Bachmann from her small hometown in Iowa, through kibbutz Be’eri, to her candidacy for the president of the United States

To make life easier, we can start as we would in a children’s tale: with two pictures. One popped up a few weeks ago in a lengthy profile article in Rolling Stone magazine; the other showed up this week on the cover of the Weekly Standard. The first publication is liberal; the second, conservative.

The first publication is not exactly one of Michele Bachmann’s fans; the second is ready to seriously consider her candidacy for the United States presidency. As of this week, the topic is Michele Bachmann’s official candidacy. In Rolling Stone’s caricature, she appears in profile with a goofy smile, one hand waving the Bible, the other holding a long sharp sword stained with blood, her body clothed in a sort of knight’s armor reminiscent of the Crusades. In the Weekly Standard’s portrayal, her smile is little affected but not crazy. She’s wearing a pink dress, standing in a field surrounded by tall green shoots and accessorized with huge earrings and a royal diadem.

You can say many things about Bachmann, but one is certainly true: Thanks to her, the U.S. presidential campaign has now become more colorful, more interesting.

Who Remembers Her at All?

Bachmann showed up this week in the city of Waterloo, Iowa and announced she was joining the race. She was born in this city 55 years ago to a lower middle class family that voted for the Democratic Party. When she was in elementary school, she moved with her parents and brothers to Minnesota. Her parents got divorced; her father was gone, leaving the mother with four children in great need. The daughter Michele grew stronger in her religious faith, very much stronger, sometimes to the point of impairing her ability to discern between reality and imagination.

An example of this is her assertion: “There is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact… hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel prizes, believe in intelligent design.” Bachmann’s mouth speaks with a speed at times surpassing that of her brain’s thinking: “It was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter… I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.”

She is a fluent orator whose messages are sharp: less government, less involvement in the citizens’ lives. Talk show radio audiences adore her; night time comic programs love her. She’s a right candidate “for people who find Sarah Palin too intellectual,” determined Bill Maher. The comparison with Palin has been repeated not only by him, but also by his competitors like Jay Leno: “Sarah Palin is very upset,” he told us. “Another female Republican trying to steal the dumbass vote.”

Crossing the Line

The political path Bachmann has walked since those days of her youth through today has brought her very far both ideologically and professionally — almost as far as the distance between Barry’s collective socialism and the conservative viewpoints of the tea party movement, among whose ranks Bachmann is proud to be counted. She founded the group of legislators called the Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives.

She came from a home that voted Democrat, and, during the 1976 elections, she volunteered with Jimmy Carter’s electoral campaign. Pretty soon though, Bachmann became “extremely disappointed… on almost every level” with Carter. The tide’s turn, which she describes as a moment of revelation that dawned upon her, came when she read a book by Gore Vidal, in which he mocked several of America’s founding fathers. “I don’t think I’m a Democrat,” she thought at the time. “And at that moment, I became a Republican. I was done,” she divulged. She was a young and very busy woman. She has five children, but she and her husband Marcus (the last name “Bachmann” is his) have also opened their house to needy teen girls suffering from eating disorders. By her count, she has raised 23 such teenagers over the years. Her critics say that she exaggerates here, too: She has not in fact “raised” these girls. The same critics also do not like her adherence to conservative Christian values, her vigorous and firm objection to abortion, the anti-same-sex marriage legislation she initiated in Minnesota and her decision to bring up her kids at home and not send them to school.

Bachmann is always prepared for an interview, for a biting quote, for a confrontation with real as well as sometimes imaginary rivals. Those who contended with her in the House elections have not forgotten this experience and share that she is “indefatigable,” “dangerous” and “reckless.”

Many a Republican Party higher-up believes that, should Bachmann win the nomination, the party will suffer a stinging defeat in the general elections against Obama. She is too rightist, too Christian, too extreme. She is going to scare the votes from the center. She would be leading a more ideologically pure party but without running a chance for the American consensus. Of course, all of this does not deter Bachmann from participating in the race. She is currently concentrating on the primaries. She will have time later to consider what to do with Obama.

What are Bachmann’s Chances?

The question is what other contenders are up to. Mitt Romney, currently the front runner, is aware that his chances in Iowa are relatively small and is focusing on New Hampshire. So is the candidate Jon Huntsman. However, Bachmann realizes that a big success in Iowa would boost her straight into the first tier of candidates. Obama knows that Iowa is a swing state driving the race. He wants a second term.

But still, how are Bachmann’s chances? There are some who look at the Iowa polls and rub their eyes in disbelief. The most important newspaper in the state, the Des Moines Register, conducted a survey this week that found that six out of every 10 GOP voters identifies with the tea party — Bachmann’s potential electorate.

Of those voters, at the moment Bachmann has 22 percent support versus Romney’s 23 percent. “The surprise here is how quickly Michele Bachmann is catching on,” said a highly-rated analyst Jennifer Duffy. At least in Iowa, she says, “To me, she’s the one to watch, not Romney.”