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Rep. Michele Bachmann is now notorious for her appearances on cable TV news programs, having sparked significant controversy with her recent “anti-America” statements on MSNBC. But as Politico reports, Bachmann, a Republican, has done 23 major television appearances since the beginning of September — far more than any member of Minnesota’s congressional delegation. How does a freshman Congress member from the minority party find herself in the limelight so often?
Easy. You and I pay for it.
Bachmann has built an impressive communications staff in Washington, D.C. She has a press secretary for national media, a press secretary for local media and a “new media director” who harnesses “the networking and outreach power of the internet.”
According to congressional salary data, none of Minnesota’s Congress members has more than one press secretary. Minnesota’s most influential members, Democratic Reps. James Oberstar and Collin Peterson, who chair the House Transportation and Agriculture committees, respectively, each have only one press secretary.
Bachmann’s fellow freshman colleagues, Democratic Reps. Keith Ellison and Tim Walz, each have just one communications lead, and Walz has combined the communications director and district director positions into one entity.
Bachmann’s critics say she has engaged in a self-promotion campaign at the expense of her constituents in the 6th District. In September, the DFL Party criticized Bachmann for her four appearances on CNN’s “Larry King Live” while she was refusing to respond to an invite to a candidate forum in Scandia.
Instead of town hall meetings and constituent gatherings, Bachmann spent the last year engaging in tele-town hall meetings, a system for cold-calling members of the district.
She hasn’t held one public meeting in the district since being elected in 2006, instead opting for meetings with chambers of commerce or relying on robo-calling.
However, she has been on “Larry King Live” seven times in the last three months. Not to mention Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, Bloomberg, Fox’s Neil Cavuto and CNBC’s Squawk Box.
I tried to reach Bachmann’s office and campaign for a list of public events in the district in just the past two months, in the off chance I’m wrong about the lack of public appearances she’s made in the district. None of her three communications staffers has returned my request.
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6 Comments »
Comment posted October 29, 2008 @ 6:42 pm
holy cow. this lady is un-american. I hope you people in your fine state do the right thing and vote her out of office. I hated her before the gaffe with the pathetic smile and condescending attitude. And that was all before i knew she was an idiot. where are the rest of the comments here. that is scary.
Comment posted October 30, 2008 @ 3:26 am
Bachmann has a long history of doing wing-nutty things, from stalking gays at a rally to turning into a groupie while groaping the president and lots more. She comes as no surprise.
The folks in her district aren’t like the rest of the state, they want a nut to represent them.
Comment posted October 31, 2008 @ 9:47 am
Michelle needs an Assistant Communications Executive in Charge of Self-Promotion to oversee the activites of her many-headed Outreach programs. She is clearly scattered in her attempts to Palin-ize herself for the 2012 election cycle. It seems obvious that she is either bucking for a Veep slot on the Palin 2012 ticket, or, more likely, she’s trying to out-Palin Palin…not a simple task. The residents of her district would do well to support her efforts. There is no doubt that Michelle Bachmann in the White House would mean great things for her constituents. Michelle in 2012!
Comment posted October 31, 2008 @ 11:21 am
In February 2008, Bachmann voted against an extension of the Protect America Act.
Later in March, she submitted an op-ed to the Star Tribune arguing that the PAA ought to have been passed and faulting House Democrats for its failure to do so.
The extension had been proposed by Democrats and was overwhelmingly supported by Democrats.
Protect America? Those Democrats are just so Un-American. Wait, no I’m for it. No, I’m against it because they’re for it. No wait, I am for it and I am against it.
Thank you Rep Bachmann, the door to oblivion is paved with your apologies, fake retractions and TV appearances. No light bulb left unturned.
Comment posted October 31, 2008 @ 11:32 am
Being told what to do must have been hard for Rep Bachmann. Her stance against saving the environment is based on her feelings, feelings that no one should be told what to do.
We ’should’ all be able to know what to do and to do the right thing, she says. This is the ideology of adolescence. The recent mortgage crisis happened because the ideology of Chairman Greenspan said: the marketplace will settle its own business. He had an ideology that said, no one should tell the market how to run its business. Then, after the market gambled on house prices always going up and some companies bet 30-1 and 40-1 against the market going down, EVER, and lost their shirts and our respect, the former chairman of the fed bank now admits that he made an error in judgement by letting the market police itself. Bachmann’s ideology of letting everyone decide for themselves whether to save the planet, and specifically whether to save on energy usage by eliminating wasteful light bulbs and replacing them when they are done, with much more energy-efficient light bulbs, reflects two things.
1. Bachmann is an adolescent in her make-up. She really believes that there is no place for external discipline to overrule the greed of the marketplace.
2. Bachmann probably doesnt even see that she is operating like adolescents act, relative to discipline, and ‘father-force’. She is dramatizing her Oepidal, her psychological weakness and playing it out on a national stage.
Please vote for a mature decent person on Tuesday, Vote for Elwyn Tinklenberg, a Methodist minister, and a visionary leader in transportation.
Comment posted October 31, 2008 @ 2:15 pm
Sounds like the Wicked Witch of the Midwest has national ambitions. O.M.G.
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