That’s the conclusion of Eric Ostermeier, who blogs at Smart Politics for the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

Ostermeier counted Bachmann’s appearances on cable shows since she took office in 2007. That first year: zero appearances. Over the past year: 43 appearances.

So by Ostermeier’s reckoning, Bachmann is on national TV every nine days. At that rate, you can set your Tivo for next Thursday and have a good shot at catching the representative from Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District.

And at that rate, isn’t Bachmann proving she could handle her own weekly show, a la Huckabee?

By the way, Ostermeier confirms what you may suspect: Bachmann is increasingly leaning toward right-leaning networks like Fox. She hasn’t, for example, shown her face on MSNBC since Oct. 17, 2008, the day she told Chris Matthews of her suspicions about colleagues in Congress harboring “anti-American” beliefs.

Her latest appearance, as of this writing, was Tuesday, when she told Fox News host Sean Hannity that reforming the nation’s health care system is unconstitutional.

All that airtime is not an accident; it’s by design. Bachmann has mobilized an exceptionally large squadron of public-relations staffers to pursue “an aggressive plan” for more media exposure. Among other benefits, Ostermeier figures that strategy is reaping Bachmann campaign-fundraising rewards.

The hail of criticism that followed her accusations on MSNBC’s “Hardball” of anti-Americanism in Congress came to be seen by “some voters,” according to Smart Politics’ Eric Ostermeier,

… as an attack on the 6th District itself (and certainly on those residents who had voted her into office in 2006). Combine that with the fact that Bachmann’s comments on Hardball probably were not seen as that controversial to many 6th CD voters, and one has a backlash in the making. … Minnesotans in the the 6th District responded in kind by holding back the Democratic wave just enough to successfully defend Bachmann’s seat, and, perhaps, their own pride.

Ostermeier backs up his contention of a Democratic drift in the district with tables of election stats, leading to his conclusion that “Bachmann deserves some credit for extending her political half-life.” But discussion of the role of the Independence Party’s Bob Anderson, who in 2008 drew 10 percent of the votes in an election that saw Bachmann beat Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg by a margin of 3 percent, is nowhere to be found. Likewise for evidence to back up the “fact” that Minnesotans voted Bachmann back into office as an expression of pride. Nevertheless, Ostermeier has this bracing warning for those who would prefer a world where Bachmann doesn’t represent Minnesotans in Congress:

As such, despite the fact that many on the left go to bed at night praying Bachmann’s recent comments on KTLX regarding the country “running out of rich people” will be the comment that leads to her undoing, they are going to be sorely disappointed. Bachmann has shown she can not only dust herself off the ground, but she can so do immaculately, even in the face of a Democratic windstorm.

The occasion for Smart Politics’ analysis and musings is the inclusion of Minnesota’s 6th District yesterday in the Rothenberg Political Report‘s first rating of the 2010 U.S. House races. Bachmann joins 3rd District U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen among eight Republican incumbents whose chances at re-election the report finds favorable at this early date, among races that Ostermeier observes are the most “likely Democratic targets” nationally.

UPDATE: Bachmann liked the Smart Politics post so much, she pointed her “BachmannforMN6” Twitter followers to it with her first tweet on that account since November.

Video and transcribed excerpts after the jump, including Pawlenty’s concern about perceived “fraud or mischief” in the Senate election, the resolution of which he said “could take well into summer or longer.” 

Mike Barnicle, substituting for “Hardball” host Chris Matthews, asked the governor to respond to people who say, “There’s Pawlenty: He was against the stimulus package but he’s going to take the money. He’s a hypocrite.” Pawlenty defended Minnesota as a net contributor to the federal budget, but first parried on hypocrisy:

Where was that double standard when Democratic governors or liberal governors in the past said, “I’m against military spending but I’m going to take National Guard money” or “I’m against No Child Left Behind but I’m going to take education money” or “I’m against tax cuts but I’m not going to voice objection to my citizens receiving the benefits of those cuts or credits.” So let’s make sure we’re looking at that argument in its full glory.

Barnicle, apparently unaware how long Pawlenty’s been flying on no-tax auto-pilot, tried flattery …

You’re a good guy, you’re a bipartisan guy. I mean you’ve got the automatons in the House of Representatives, they stand up en masse and vote, not one Republican votes for the stimulus package.

… before pressing hard on why — “for the first time in history, from the time people went to war by throwing rocks at on another”  — Republicans under President Bush cut taxes while fighting two wars, running up the national debt. Pawlenty shot back by citing “recent history” that somehow doesn’t include the Clinton era:

It doesn’t matter it seems in recent history for most of the years, whether a Republican’s in the White House or a Democrat, or Republicans are in charge in the Congress or the Democrats, they have forgotten or let go of the goal and the importance of balancing the budget.

The weary world traveler looked more haggard than usual, seen against a wall of books rather than the standard Third Avenue Bridge-by-night Minneapolis backdrop that he and Sen. Amy Klobuchar used in their MSNBC appearances early in the week. (When will the new, blue-lit I-35W bridge make its cable TV news backdrop debut?)

Barnicle asked: “How does affect, if it does, or impact, if it does, the people of Minnesota, having only one United States senator?” Pawlenty’s reply, in part:

Well, it impacts us significantly because right now some of the big issues of our time are being decided in Washington, and having only one senator is a big disadvantage. So it’s very unfortunate, and it puts us at a disadvantage.

And yet he prefaced that by telling the national TV audience that:

We don’t want an outcome where people say there was fraud or mischief or some legal flaw.

How long will it take to make sure “people” don’t “say” such awful things? (My question, not Barnicle’s.)

If one side or the other decides to appeal the outcome to federal court, this could take well into summer or longer. It may be that one side or the other decides not to do that.

The interview ended on the topic of the Republican Party’s future, which some say Pawlenty embodies. He gave a hard supply-and-demand analysis to the party’s standing with the American voters:

In politics, we’re going to be the marketplace party? The marketplace is telling us they prefer the products and services of our competitors. And if we’re going to be a winning, growing, governing party, we need to be about including more people in, not throwing people overboard.

Which could explain his two appearances in one week on reputedly liberal MSNBC.

Here’s the video (MSNBC’s sometimes buggy video embed willing):

“[T]his new Bachmann is so careful,” writes The Hills Betsy Rothstein. “She holds her head perfectly still and during a 30-minute interview appears to be completely in control. Her answers are brief. She offers smiles, but they last just a few seconds.”

Such reserve will be on display at the inauguration of Barack Obama, who won’t be getting any Bachmann lip time, contrary to her campaign-season remark to the contrary. Asked about a repeat of her Bush kiss, which she basically camped out for, she replied, “Will I be sitting in the well? Probably not.”

When TIME’s Best of 2008 series came out, I was surprised that Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann didn’t make the cut. Her infamous October appearance on Hardball didn’t merit mention in the Top 10 Campaign Video Moments (which, rightfully, saw Sarah Palin’s Katie Couric interview at the top) or Top 10 Campaign Gaffes? Now, as 2008 winds down, we’ll start seeing more of Michele. The first two: Today, the New York Times’ Ginia Bellafante includes Bachmann’s “most embarrassing moment” on Hardball in her list of TV “Moments that Float and Sting.” Meanwhile, Comedy Central’s Indecision 2008 recognizes the 6th district U.S. representative for “channeling Joseph McCarthy” on the MSNBC show. She’s competing against the likes of Joe the Plumber, Rush Limbaugh, PUMAs and Barack Obama (“for being a Muslim, Arab, too-black, not-black-enough, Communist, socialist, Marxist, non-flag-pin-wearing, baby-killing, Hamas-endorsed, appeasement-practicing, elitist, community-organizing, eloquent, big-eared man who pals around with terrorists and can’t bowl”) for Best Campaign Villain of 2008. Readers can cast their vote on that one here. (She’s currently leading the pack, with 34 percent of the vote.)

Before Rep. Michele Bachmann’s Oct. 17 statements on MSNBC about “anti-America views” she feared some in Congress hold, the airwaves in the 6th Congressional District were relatively quiet. But over the past two weeks well over $1 million in campaign contributions from people outraged by her comments have poured into the campaign of DFLer El Tinklenberg. Meanwhile, outrage over what conservatives have deemed a media smear-job against Bachmann have generated half as much money for her campaign.

The result has been a slew of ads pushed out by campaigns and third-party supporters — at least half a dozen in the last five days.

Flush with new money, DFL candidate El Tinklenberg has started airing his third ad of the campaign season, which includes words from former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Bachmann has released four new ads in the last five days. Two repeat a misleading message regarding Tinklenberg’s term as transportation commissioner, one attacks him on property taxes and another promotes Bachmann’s “23 foster children,” as well as her opposition to the Wall Street bailout.

Alliance for a Better Minnesota put out an ad with Bachmann kissing Bush, saying “she embarrasses us.” The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee attacked Bachmann on her deregulation stance on Wall Street.

Bachmann: Tax Hikes Up Ahead!

Bachmann: Google Search Tinklenberg

Bachmann: Tink’s Failed Leadership at MnDOT

Bachmann: A Brighter Future

Alliance for a Better Minnesota: Michele Bachmann – Nonsense

Tinklenberg: Crisis

DCCC: Michele Bachmann – She’s for Wall Street, not Minnesota

Rep. Michele Bachmann (left): Since Hardball, her campaign has been paralyzed.

If God is in the habit of personally steering Michele Bachmann’s  political career, as she has been known to claim, then you have to wonder if His heart is really in it anymore. It’s been almost two weeks since Bachmann dropped the “anti-American” bomb on Hardball that has become the most widely aired gaffe in any US congressional campaign this year, and her campaign’s handling of the matter looks a lot like one protracted act of political malpractice.

First, consider Bachmann’s efforts at damage control. She waited four days to address the matter in national media, thereby effectively ceding the most critical part of the incident’s aftermath to the repeated re-broadcast of her comments and to news of the fundraising groundswell they had created for her opponent, El Tinklenberg, who raised nearly $1.5 million in that time.

And when Bachmann did respond, it was neither to apologize nor to dig in her heels. Instead, she complained that Chris Matthews had put words in her mouth — an appeal that was seriously undercut by the zeal with which Bachmann took up the Hardball host’s suggestion that Obama and other unnamed Democrats were anti-American. She followed this with a 30-second TV spot so soft and so swaddled in euphemism that it sounded like an ad for a mortuary. And again, no apology.

Then again, it’s not entirely clear that Bachmann needed to apologize in order to stem the damage. But she needed to do something to take back control of the conversation. The Campaigns 101 play — and it seemed so not only to me, but to a number of political pros I’ve talked to privately in the past week — appeared to be trying to turn El Tinklenberg’s newfound strength (a national, 11th-hour fundraising base) into a weakness.

The 6th congressional district, after all, is the most conservative in the state, generously stocked with evangelicals and other nativist conservative elements of the sort that might be heartened by sentiments like Bachmann’s, or at least not terribly offended. The situation seemed ripe for a response along pretty obvious tactical lines: Are voters in the 6th going to let national liberal elites tell them what to do?

It never happened. In fact, nothing has really happened in the Bachmann campaign since Hardball. You can excuse Bachmann herself for feeling pole-axed; Michele had never had the chance to be Michele on such a large stage before, and the public reaction seems to have thrown her into an almost clinical state of shock. But what about the so-called political professionals behind her? Has God advised them to sit on their hands, or has Bachmann’s gift for running a chaotically staffed congressional office bled over into her campaign operation as well?

The fallout from Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “anti-America” interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews last Friday has turned the 2008 6^th District race on its head. But it also could poison the well for Bachmann’s future fundraising efforts should she win this time or run for another office in the future.

It’s been widely noted that Bachmann’s challenger, El Tinklenberg, has raised a reported $1.45 million in campaign donations since that interview.

How about Bachmann? She has taken in $29,900 in itemized (over $250) contributions since last Friday.

But a spokesperson for at least one of Bachmann’s contributors — Schwan Food PAC of Marshall, MN — tells Minnesota Independent his company isn’t happy with the congresswoman’s comments and indicates they will almost certainly be taken into account before making future contributions to her.

Schwan’s political action committee donated $2,000 to Bachmann’s campaign on Oct. 22. But Alan Poff, Schwan’s government affairs manager, says the PAC’s steering committee approved the contribution before Bachmann went public with her anti-American suspicions.

“I’m not okay with those comments,” he stated emphatically and repeatedly. “I don’t think the comments were appropriate.” Schwan’s PAC, supported by the company’s executives, contributed to Bachmann because she’s “pro-business,” says Poff. “I would think those comments would be considered” by the PAC’s steering committee before making any future donations to Bachmann, he added.

Other corporate PACs kicking into Bachmann’s campaign coffers in the post-Hardball week include:

American Milk Producers ($1,000)
Boston Scientific PAC ($1,000)
Pfizer ($2,000)
National Association of Health Underwriters ($1,500)
Safari Club International ($2,000)

While Bachmann’s controversial comments may give pause to some of her corporate supporters in the future, she’ll always have her base.

Arnold and Jean Kroll, retirees from Forest Lake, each donated $2,300 to Bachmann’s campaign on Oct. 22.

“Actually, it was my husband who did,” says Jean Kroll.

But Arnold trumpets his support for Bachmann to MnIndy in no uncertain terms. “I believe in what [Bachmann] said and I do not believe in what the press is doing to her,” he asserts. “It’s been all very one-sided. That’s one of the reasons the bond houses just rated the New York Times bonds as junk. I think everything has been slanted one way. I just wanted to even things out a little bit.”

Besides retirees, “unemployed homemakers” (wives of wealthy spouses) have always been among Bachmann’s most generous supporters. Since her MSNBC meltdown, Bachmann has raked in $5,000 from four contributors in that sector.