Here’s a look at some of the personalities Bachmann will hobnob with in St. Louis on Sept. 25 and 26.

Last week, Rick Scarborough of Vision America gave listeners on his radio show a preview or what to expect at the conference.

“There’s always a political component to revival,” he said. “If we fell on our face at that conference and said ‘Oh God, send revival and let it start with me… with the training we receive. Then [we] go back and recruit hundreds of people like us. By next spring, the spring of 2010, we can turn out the infidels, we can help people like Michele Bachmann return to Congress.”

“God does his best work right after a crucifixion,” said Scarborough. He said that Christians felt crucified during this last election especially “with Obama controlling so much of the resources, with him stealing from the American people.”

But Scarborough is not the only outspoken rightwinger at the conference.

Don Feder, communications director of the World Congress of Families, an organization which hosts anti-LBGT events around the world, is listed as an organizer of the conference. He waited two days after the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy before maligning the statesman. “Known as the ‘liberal lion of the Senate,’ Edward M. Kennedy was a fitting symbol for his creed – intellectually flabby, detached from reality, arrogant, self-righteous, hypocritical and, ultimately, useless.”

No stranger to controversy, Feder was lambasted by Latino groups for speaking out against the right of Puerto Ricans to vote for statehood. “But don’t Americans have the same right — the right not to be saddled with an impoverished, crime-ridden island of non-English speakers as our 51st state? It’s hard to imagine a worse candidate for admission to the Union than this Caribbean Dogpatch.”

Sharing the stage with Bachmann will be Janet Porter of the religious right group Faith2Action. Her latest fear is that the Obama administration will force H1N1 vaccinations on citizens, carting off those who refuse to internment camps. She’s made friends within the “birther” movement for her frequent articles calling for an investigation of President Obama because she doesn’t think he’s a citizen.

“The media bought it. The voters bought it. And now some in Congress are resisting the idea of congressional hearings because they believe that Barack Obama’s ‘birth certificate’ has been posted online,” she wrote in WorldNetDaily, a rightwing news service. “What if an imposter from another country ran for the presidency and won? What if the media blocked any news of his birthplace and citizenship?”

WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah is also a rightwing conspiracy theorist whose website encouraged readers to send letters to Obama on his birthday inquiring about his place of birth — all for the low price of $6.95. Farah is an organizer of the event as well.

Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel, also a conference organizer, made headlines when his group threatened to sue a school library for violating the separation of church and state for awarding children who finished Harry Potter novels with a “Hogwarts’ Certificate of Accomplishment.”

“We believe that witchcraft is a religion and the certificate of witchcraft endorsed a particular religion in violation of the First Amendment establishment clause,” Staver said of the threatened lawsuit.

Rounding out the religious right speakers at the conference is octogenarian religious right gadfly Phyllis Schlafly, who has spent the last 30 years fighting the Equal Rights Amendment, a constitutional amendment that sprang out of the Women’s Suffrage movement in the 1920s to guarantee equal rights under the law regardless of sex.

On the U.S. Supreme Court decisions on social issues in the 20th Century, Schlafly wrote: “Out went the Ten Commandments, in came condoms. Out went the Cross and pictures of Christ, in came drawings of apes pretending to walk like humans. Out went Adam and Eve, in came Heather Has Two Mommies. Out went Easter, in came Earth Day. Out went teachings against homosexuality, in came teachings in favor of homosexuality.”

Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum is reported to have said in 1996, “Many years ago Christian pioneers had to fight savage Indians. Today missionaries of these former cultures are being sent via the public schools to heathenize our children.”

Schlafly is the lead organizer of the conference and shared the stage with Bachmann several times before, including last year at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. In a webinar to supporters two weeks ago, she said, “This is the most important conference we have ever put on. Our country is in greater danger than ever before.”

But changed to what? Is he cozying up to the Republican base, as opposed to Minnesota voters who trend to the center, now that his Senate bid seems to be winding down? Angling for a party job?

Three-hundred-year-old religious right gadfly Phyllis Schlafly organized a “Life of the Party” party on Tuesday for pro-life delegates and politicians. The event was rife with bitter disappointments for the crowd, however. First delegates were met at the door by protesters from Code Pink, who heckled pro-lifers for their support of the war. Then they learned that the gala’s planned headliner, Gov. Sarah Palin, had canceled the night before and was being replaced by right-wing talk radio star Laura Ingraham. Schlafly was not amused.

“I think this is clearly somebody in the McCain campaign who doesn’t understand where the votes are coming from,” Schlafly told ABC News. “They only told me this at 10 o’clock last night and it was a call from somebody down-the-line in the McCain campaign.”

Backed by a Dixieland quartet, Schlafly kicked off the party at 2 pm and was greeted by two protesters who jumped on stage. Undeterred, she carried on with a program that ended with testimonials on behalf of Palin. from Rep. Michele Bachmann (”One thing we know is that with our Founding Father, it has always been cool to be pro-life.”) and religious right leader Gary Bauer, who offered what was perhaps the most ringing Christian endorsement of any out-of-wedlock pregnancy since that of Jesus’ mother: “In the last several days,” he intoned, “Gov. Palin’s family have taught the American people more about what it means to be a faith-based family that believes in the sanctity of life than anything the politicians could do in Washington DC.”

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann: a meeting of the, uh, minds.

Michele Bachmann will be a featured guest at the “The Life of the Party Party,” a reception honoring Alaska Governor Sarah Palin during next week’s Republican National Convention. The event is sponsored by anti-feminist and Bachmann financier Phyllis Schlafly and the Republican National Coalition for Life.

Bachmann will be joined by two of her other pals from the religious right— prominent anti-gay crusader Gary Bauer and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. The Palin soiree is September 2 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Crowne Plaza Hotel downtown St. Paul. Tickets are $95.
Governor Palin has been considered a rising star in the Republican Party. However, a recently developing political scandal could tarnish her political future. She’s been accused of pressuring the state’s public safety commissioner to fire a state trooper who was involved in a messy divorce with Palin’s sister, and then firing the public safety commissioner when he refused to fire the trooper. A legislative investigation has been launched to look into the matter.

Perkins, who was a featured speaker at one of Bachmann’s anti-gay rallies on the state capitol steps in 2005, has been linked= to the white supremacist group Council of Concerned Citizens and former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke.

Like Bachmann, Gary Bauer has made a career out of bashing public education and gays and trying to inject religion into every avenue of public life. He ran for president in 2000 but like so many other moralists on the Christian right, was dogged by rumors of infidelity.

Schlafly, the event’s co-sponsor, has been a heavy contributor to Bachmann’s campaigns through her Eagle Forum PAC–$13,500 since 2005.

The Republican National Coalition for Life gave Bachmann $5,000 in her 2006 campaign.

Minnesota Independent has more on Schlafly, Perkins and Bauer here.

Although Bachmann’s name doesn’t appear on the event’s web page, an RNC delegate from Washington enthusiastically noted it in her blog this month.

Bachmann will also address the RNC September 1, the same day Bush and Cheney take to the podium, and plans to visit the Minnesota State Fair during the convention with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. And in keeping with her perfect record of avoiding public meetings in the 6^th congressional district that she represents, Bachmann is hosting a reception for members of Congress at an undisclosed location in the district.

Karl Bremer can be reached at saintcroix@aol.com