Bachmann hasn’t been able to convince any of her colleagues, even in the Tea Party caucus, to support her presidential bid.
Palin: “Whichever direction life takes me, I’m going to continue to speak up for we the people and that tea party movement and the mama grizzlies.”
In his address to Congress Thursday night, President Obama outlined his “jobs plan” to jump start the American economy. Minnesota’s elected officials and interest groups weighed in on Obama’s speech, and the responses fell along party lines.
Americans for Prosperity, a Koch brothers-funded political group, announced on Tuesday that it has formed a chapter in Minnesota. The Kochs, along with their state-based chapters of AFP, have been a major supporter of the tea party movement.
“That [Michele] Bachmann and [Ron] Paul finished at the top in the straw poll, it certainly seems to give a boost to the status of the tea party and its issues, but that doesn’t really result in the notion that some combination of social conservatives and tea party activists have taken over the Republican party (in Iowa),” says Tim Hagle, a political scientist and Republican pundit at the University of Iowa.
Organizers for the Freedom Jamboree, billed as the national tea party straw poll convention, announced on Wednesday that the event has been canceled due to low attendance. The conference had pulled in two of Minnesota most controversial figures, presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and rightwing preacher Bradlee Dean. It was also being organized by Iowa’s Bob Vander Plaats, whose organization, The Family Leader, sparked an uproar in the state after it released a presidential pledge on marriage.
Rep. Michele Bachmann is ramping up her likely presidential campaign with a series of upcoming travel dates and the addition of a national press secretary. The news was announced as she heads to New Hampshire to participate in the first GOP presidential debate Monday evening and as she scheduled a tea party bus tour of Iowa. She also got a huge platform for her economic views in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, something critics have already vetted.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow made note of Rep. Michele Bachmann’s upcoming September appearance at the Freedom Jamboree, a tea party presidential nominating conference that will also feature Bradlee Dean of the religious group You Can Run But You Cannot Hide. Dean repeatedly has called for the incarceration of gays and lesbians, while Bachmann has frequently helped the group with fundraising.
Rep. Michele Bachmann is the first potential presidential candidate to confirm that she will speak at Freedom Jamboree, a tea party “nominating convention for the offices of President and Vice President” to be held in Kansas City in September. The convention has already drawn a motley crew of personalities, including Minnesota’s own Bradlee Dean of You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International ministries.
Minnesota Majority, Minnesota Voters Alliance and the North Star Tea Party Patriots lost a case in court on Friday when U.S. District Court Judge Joan Erickson dismissed the trio’s challenge to a state law that bans political apparel in the polling place. The groups had attempted a campaign to have their supporters bring “Please ID Me” buttons and tea party t-shirts into polling places, but elections officials said the items would not be allowed.
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