Salon.com : Run, Michele Bachmann, run ! - Why Michele Bachmann should run for president - The likely GOP contenders engage in a race to the moral, intellectual and political bottom, Bachmann's not really worse than the rest of them

.

Joan Walsh : "I used to think she was at the GOP fringe, but the party's in a race to the bottom. She's no worse than Gingrich"

Salon.com
Why Michele Bachmann should run for president
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 18:19 ET
Joan Walsh


Why Michele Bachmann should run for president


Some excerpts :

I know, I know, I already wrote my "Run, Michele, run" piece, but it was tongue-in-cheek, the chortling of a Democrat who couldn't believe President Obama would be lucky enough to have a chance at Michele Bachmann in November 2012. She just seemed so far outside the GOP mainstream, even on the Tea Party fringe, with a gift for saying such profoundly stupid things, I couldn't take her seriously.

I'm beginning to take her kind of seriously. Because as the likely GOP contenders engage in a race to the moral, intellectual and political bottom, Bachmann's not really worse than the rest of them.

Tuesday Bachmann claimed she's riding a grass-roots wave as she ponders a presidential run in the wake of announcements by Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee that they won't make the race. "Well, I think what this has changed is the grass roots, and what they're looking for," Bachmann told Fox News. "Our phones have been ringing off the hook, our Facebook has been lit up, our donations are pouring in. And people are saying, 'Michele, jump in, we want you to run.' And we had announced earlier that we would be looking at a June entry date for a decision one way or another about this race. Possibly, we may move that up."

....................

OK, Bachmann doesn't know in exactly which state American rebels fired "the shots heard round the world," she believes the founders "worked tirelessly to eradicate slavery" though many owned slaves, and likes to refer to the Obama administration as "gangster government," which is up there with Gingrich's references to Detroit and food stamps as racial dog whistles pretty much everyone can hear. She's a far-right demagogue -- but in a race where even moderate candidates are running to the right, why not offer voters the real thing?

.