Driven by religion
by digby
Here’s another profile of Michele Bachman, this time from the Financial Times:
“Instead of looking at who’s electable, I’m looking at who’s the best person,” Barb Heki tells me as we discuss politics over breakfast in a bakery just outside of Des Moines, Iowa. “From a theological perspective, biblically, God puts leaders in place and my role is to look for the most righteous leaders – to be a light by supporting them and then let God work through that.” Heki does not fit the mould of a powerful political operative. A devout Christian with four children and a frizzy, 1980s-style mane, she is an outspoken advocate of home schooling. But for the last few months, she has been courted by many of the top Republican contenders for the White House…
Heki is modest about her clout but she is happy to express views that many would consider radical. She does not believe the government should run schools and opposes abortion under all circumstances, including in cases of rape or incest. She is also ready to do whatever it takes to get Michele Bachmann, the Republican congresswoman from Minnesota, elected president.
[…]
Rebecca Otto, a Democrat who serves as state auditor of Minnesota and used to share a district with Bachmann, believes her former colleague is driven by religion. “I don’t think she always makes that public … you’re not going to see that in commercials,” Otto tells me over lunch in downtown St Paul. Bachmann, she says, is “very, very bright” and extremely careful about not allowing herself to be “set up for failure”.
She is also, says Otto, a woman who does not mince words when unhappy. Otto tells a story about how she once appeared uninvited at one of Bachmann’s town hall meetings with constituents, and invited Bachmann to attend a town hall meeting she was planning. Otto says this was standard practice for two lawmakers who shared the same district. But an angry Bachmann allegedly cornered her in a corridor, jabbing her finger as she spoke.“She said, ‘Don’t you ever invite me to a town hall meeting again and don’t you ever come to mine again. Do you understand?’ I said the state has budgetary issues and [voters] would expect us to work together to solve their problems,” Otto recalled. Bachmann allegedly replied “That is not how it works” and walked away.
[…]
As she ramps up her campaign, Bachmann is one of the only candidates who has nothing to prove to the Tea Party and the socially conservative Republicans who make up roughly two thirds of the party’s voters. That support alone will not secure her the nomination in a field that is still not settled; she may yet face a rival in Rick Perry, the Texas governor who has hinted at a late presidential run.
“The level of stridency that we are seeing in the Republican party is such that there is a lot that wouldn’t surprise me any more,” says Charlie Cook, a non-partisan political analyst in Washington and publisher of the closely followed Cook Political Report newsletter. “In the old fashioned Republican party, she would be a joke. But in this Republican party, she is a real contender.”
The good news is that we don’t have to worry about social conservatism anymore. Well, at least that’s what they tell us.
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