Bachmann leads charge of the right brigade

McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON — When Michele Bachmann took the podium at a rally against health-care legislation last week, she dutifully hit the highlights of the Republican argument against the bill: It’s too expensive, it will depress wages, it punishes the middle class.

But because she is Michele Bachmann, she did not stop there.

In less than eight minutes, the Minnesota congresswoman told the cheering crowd of conservative activists at the Capitol that the Democratic health-care legislation isn’t just bad policy — it’s unconstitutional. She invoked Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” though it memorializes a suicide mission. She dissed the United Nations, recalled Elian Gonzalez’s journey from Cuba and offered this holiday greeting:

“That is our wish for fellow citizens here in the United States — for freedom, not for government enslavement!” The crowd roared.

In two terms in Congress, Bachmann has often used hyperbole and political theatrics to make headlines. But recently, she has achieved an even rarer feat: Winning the trust of the anti-incumbent, small-government “tea party” activists who distrust most elected officials. And that puts Bachmann in a position of rising influence.

Republicans fear the tea-party conservatives will run their own candidates for office and drain votes from the GOP. In two recent polls, more voters had a high opinion of the tea-party movement than of the Republican Party (and in one poll, higher than the Democratic Party). The movement is blamed for tipping one House race already, a special election in upstate New York last month, to the Democrats.

Now, as the tea-party crowd tries to organize and raise money for next year’s Senate and House elections, Republican leaders are taking note of Bachmann’s special rapport with the group.

A new GOP Web site aimed at rebutting President Barack Obama’s jobs proposal features only a few lawmakers, including Bachmann, along with Republican leaders. And recently, the Republican National Committee put Bachmann on a conference call to discuss health care with a host of grass- root groups, including tea-party activists.

“There’s no question that Congresswoman Bachmann fires up the base,” said LeRoy Coleman, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. “She’s a powerful and galvanizing voice for this party.”

That is not how all Republicans see Bachmann, who once famously said she was “hot for Jesus” and is quick to call Obama’s governing plans “socialism.” Some want to keep the 53-year-old congresswoman at arm’s length.

When Bachmann declared that she would ignore almost all questions on the census form, calling them an unconstitutional effort to collect personal data, three fellow House Republicans called her stance “illogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country.”

When Colin Powell last year turned his back on his party and endorsed Obama, he cited Bachmann’s suggestion that Obama held “anti-American views,” calling it “nonsense.” And in a survey this month by National Journal magazine, Republican members of Congress cited Bachmann as among the colleagues they would “most like to mute.”

But the same over-the-top comments that turn some colleagues off have also turned Bachmann into the darling of a conservative movement that believes the GOP has wandered from its traditional values. Bachmann is one of just two elected officials scheduled to speak at the National Tea Party convention in February.