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Good News for Michele Bachmann

by: Bill Prendergast

Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 17:02:17 PM CST

We've just completed the artwork for the next issue of "False Witness: The Michele Bachmann Story!" That's the comic book political biography of Michele I've been doing with some local Minnesota artists.

The next issue is our "all gay!" issue that tells how Michele rode a wave of Minnesota homophobia into Congress. Should be out by the end of next month, but we'll see.

More good news for Michele, via MPR Polinaut:

53% of Bachmann's constituents approve of the job she's doing in Congress to 41% who disapprove. Her numbers certainly reflect her polarizing nature, with 86% of Republicans giving her good marks and 83% of Democrats saying they don't like her performance. But in a GOP leaning district and with a 51% approval from independents it all adds up to a pretty solid standing.

Not surprising, to people who have been reading this reporter. As those readers know: with this district's voting demographics, Bachmann has roughly 47% of the voters in the bag, permanently. (That 47%/48% per cent could be described as "Bachmann fans and fans of the Bachmann worldview--evangelical, conservative talk radio, conspiracy-haunted, etc.)

The pro-Bachmann percentage above her usual 47%-48% is probably attributable to her reach-out to Ron Paul types over the last year or so, to her attempts to put a human face on her inhuman politics by staging photo-op events on (for example) women's health care.

The rise in support is certainly not attributable to Bachmann's constituent service or delivery of support for her district--as these are virtually non-existent. She has been courting the support of previously marginal constituencies within the district--and if you believe this Dem poll, it's been paying off. (continued)

Bill Prendergast :: Good News for Michele Bachmann

People who have been reading my stuff on Bachmann over the past year or so may also remember me discussing Bachmann's Ron Paul/women's health care strategy as a concerted attempt to win her a solid majority. The reason I mentioned that months ago has to do with Bachmann's aspirations outside the district: she has built a base as a national demagogue with millions of fans. But it will be tough for her to go higher than Congress if her election totals tend to be marginal and dependent on the existence of a large independent vote in her district.

A solid and outright majority next time around (a Bachmann win without the need for an independent splitting vote) would be a huge advantage for Bachmann if she seeks a Senate seat or governor's nod. (She needs one of those to get to the White House, which is exactly where millions of conservatives want to see her.)

How about the Bachmann opponents?

Tested against her potential 2010 opponents Bachmann leads Tarryl Clark 55-37 and Maureen Reed 53-37. The magnitude of those leads at this stage certainly has a lot to do with the Democrats' low name recognition, as 82% of voters don't know enough about Reed to have an opinion of her and 68% say the same of Clark. Bachmann's leads over them will probably get smaller as they become better known, but she is still over the 50% threshold considered safe for an incumbent.

It doesn't matter if the Bachmann lead over Clark and Reed "gets smaller," except in the short term. What matters is, whether Clark or Reed can close a huge gap and become competitive with Bachmann.

Even given the fact that they face a huge number disadvantage going into this race, the Democrats have regularly blown this. One of the strategies that has been regularly run out as a Dem strategy for this is: "Shhh! Don't point out to people that Bachmann's a nut, liar, and bigot. That will alienate potential voter in the district!"

In a district where a Bachmann victory is the way to bet, that's proved to be a moron political strategy. In light of the numbers, there is really no reason to donate anything to a candidate who won't point out that Bachmann is a nut, liar, and bigot. (You want me to support you, work for you, give you dough--so that you can use the same failed strategy as your failed predecessors?)

Nah, you shouldn't give money to Dems who won't even go down fighting. Why would you give money to candidates who are going to go down "sucking," candidates doomed to go down and determined to do so without doing any serious harm to the career of a national demagogue?

DFL candidates can do Bachmann demagoguery some damage, even if they doomed to lose the election in a GOP dominated districted. That would be purpose of donating time and money--to enable a brave to make a stand (and a reputation) for fighting Bachmann's lies, hatred, and sectarian proto-fascism. The purpose of such a campaign would be to make Bachmann's hateful and divisive brand of politics public, force the facts into the local media by having candidates talk about them, campaign on the ugly facts about Bachmann--force her to respond...which could weaken her nationally, by letting people know what she's really all about.

That's the kind of campaign against Bachmann I would support--yes, even if it was doomed to lose--because it would get the facts out into the light, here in Minnesota, now. Years ago I hoped that Wetterling and Tinklenberg would run such a campaign...never happened, because they followed the conventional wisdom ("you've got to reach out to the middle") in a district with unconventional realities, against a candidate who "thrives on division, gets fat on division."

Time to face facts: if Clark and Reed mount separate efforts, those efforts will die politically, die miserably and ineffectually. Since Reed seems determined to stay in until no Dem has any hope of winning--I would advise Clark to start going for Bachmann's throat, turning up every incidence of madness and lies (and they are legion.)

If Clark wants to emerge from this as a hero rather than a zero (a la Wetterling and Tinklenberg) that's the way to do it, win or lose. Win or lose, millions of Americans will support a valiant effort against a hateful demagogue--similarly, millions of Americans will have contempt for another failed milksop "reach out to Republicans and independents" effort.

Having said that: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Grand New Year to All! Ho ho ho...

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Tags: bizarro world insane, Michele Bachmann, (All Tags)

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Good News for Michele Bachmann | 1 comments

Railing against "government handouts" is easy when you are getting them (0.00 / 0)

More ammunition.

http://www.truthdig.com/report...

Michele Bachmann: Welfare Queen
http://www.truthdig.com/report...
Posted on Dec 22, 2009
By Yasha Levine
Michele Bachmann has become well known for her anti-government tea-bagger antics, protesting health care reform and every other government "handout" as socialism. What her followers probably don't know is that Rep. Bachmann is, to use that anti-government slur, something of a welfare queen. That's right, the anti-government insurrectionist has taken more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts thanks to corrupt farming subsidies she has been collecting for at least a decade.
And she's not the only one who has been padding her bank account with taxpayer money.
Bachmann, of Minnesota, has spent much of this year agitating against health care reform, whipping up the so-called tea-baggers with stories of death panels and rationed health care. She has called for a revolution against what she sees as Barack Obama's attempted socialist takeover of America, saying presidential policy is "reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom."
But data compiled from federal records by Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog that tracks the recipients of agricultural subsidies in the United States, shows that Bachmann has an inner Marxist that is perfectly at ease with profiting from taxpayer largesse. According to the organization's records, Bachmann's family farm received $251,973 in federal subsidies between 1995 and 2006. The farm had been managed by Bachmann's recently deceased father-in-law and took in roughly $20,000 in 2006 and $28,000 in 2005, with the bulk of the subsidies going to dairy and corn. Both dairy and corn are heavily subsidized-or "socialized"-businesses in America (in 2005 alone, Washington spent $4.8 billion propping up corn prices) and are subject to strict government price controls. These subsidies are at the heart of America's bizarre planned agricultural economy and as far away from Michele Bachmann's free-market dream world as Cuba's free medical system. If American farms such as hers were forced to compete in the global free market, they would collapse.
However, Bachmann doesn't think other Americans should benefit from such protection and assistance. She voted against every foreclosure relief bill aimed at helping average homeowners (despite the fact that her district had the highest foreclosure rate in Minnesota), saying that bailing out homeowners would be "rewarding the irresponsible while punishing those who have been playing by the rules." That's right, the subsidy queen wants the rest of us to be responsible.
Bachmann's financial disclosure forms indicate that her personal stake in the family farm is worth up to $250,000. They also show that she has been earning income from the farm business, and that the income grew in just a few years from $2,000 to as much as $50,000 for 2008. This has provided her with a second government-subsidized income to go with her job as a government-paid congresswoman who makes $174,000 per year (in addition to having top-notch government medical benefits). "If she has an interest in a farm getting federal subsidy payments, she is benefiting from them," Sandra Schubert, director of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, told Gannett News Service in 2007, when the subsidies to Bachmann were first publicly disclosed.
But Bachmann isn't the only welfare recipient on Capitol Hill. As it turns out, there is a filthy-rich class of absentee farmers-both in and out of Congress-who demand free-market rules by day and collect their government welfare checks in the mail at night, payments that subsidize businesses that otherwise would fail. Over the past couple of decades, welfare for the super-wealthy seems to be the only kind of welfare our society tolerates.
In the 11 years for which the Environmental Working Group has compiled data, the federal government paid out a total of $178 billion to American farmers. We're not talking about the Joads here. The bulk of subsidies go to the wealthy, not small farmers, as Ken Cook, the group's president, explained to the Central Valley (Calif.) Business Times:
American taxpayers have been writing farm subsidy checks to wealthy absentee land owners, state prison systems, universities, public corporations, and very large, well-heeled farm business operations without the government so much as asking the beneficiaries if they need our money. ... Even if you live smack in the middle of a big city, type in a ZIP code and you'll find farm subsidy recipients.
Chuck Grassley, the longtime Republican senator from Iowa who warns his constituents of Obama's "trend toward socialism," has seen his family collect $1 million in federal handouts over an 11-year period, with Grassley's son receiving $699,248 and the senator himself pocketing $238,974. Even Grassley's grandson is learning to ride through life on training wheels, snagging $5,964 in 2005 and $2,363 in 2006. In the Grassley family they learn early how to enjoy other people's money.
Sen. Grassley railed against government intervention in the health care market, telling The Washington Times, "Whenever the government does more ... that's a movement toward socialism." As the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, he ought to know, especially because the government has done more for him and his kin than for Americans struggling with high medical bills and mortgages. Even the free-market think tank the Heritage Foundation criticized Grassley on his deep connections to farming interests and his stubborn lack of transparency.
Then there's Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., whose family has been on the government take for at least the past 11 years, pocketing some $500,000. The senator recently held a "prayercast" with Michele Bachmann to beseech God to kill health care reform as soon as possible because it would bring an evil socialist spirit into America. Like Bachmann, Brownback has a fierce belief in God, the free market and a two-year limit on all welfare benefits-unless it's welfare to rich Republicans who don't need it.
Not surprisingly, Blue Dog Democrats are on board with this welfare-for-the-rich thing. Max Baucus, the fiscally conservative Democratic senator from Montana who did his best to sabotage the health care reform process before it ever began, collected $250,000 in taxpayer subsidies to his family's farm while fighting to keep Americans at the mercy of free-market health insurance. Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, another Democrat, also helped hold the line against so-called socialized medicine for Americans who need assistance, even though her family farm business follows the socialized subsidy playbook to a T. The Lincolns pocketed $715,000 in farm subsidies over a 10-year period, and the senator even admitted to using $10,000 of it as petty cash in 2007. Democratic Rep. Stephanie Sandlin of South Dakota stayed true to her conservative free-market roots by voting against the public option. Meanwhile, her daddy, Lars Herseth, a former South Dakota legislator, collected a welfare jackpot of $844,725 paid out between 1995 and 2006.
That's just the way the game is played these days. Republicans and conservative Democrats bitch and moan about the allegedly Marxist underpinnings of universal health care and do everything they can to deny struggling Americans access to social services. Meanwhile, many of them profit off taxpayers in a massive welfare program.
Farm subsidies have become so corrupt that payments sometimes go to dead people for years. Federal farm subsidies, which were originally meant to help struggling farmers survive, are now little more than taxpayer robbery, taking taxpayer wealth from working Americans and sending it to the have-mores. According to 11 years' worth of Environmental Working Group data that tracks $200 billion in subsidies, the wealthiest 10 percent of "farmers" have collected 75 percent of the money. That's exactly the kind of socialism that Rep. Bachmann and her elite ilk like.
Yasha Levine is a freelance journalist and editor of eXiled Online. You can contact him at levine@exiledonline.com.