I do hope he re-enters the race when Bachmann changes her mind and decides to run again!

Here’s the letter from Graves:

This is the most difficult message I’ve ever had to write.

A year ago, we set out on a mission: To restore civility, functionality and honesty to Washington by removing Michele Bachmann from office. Her hateful rhetoric and dangerous policies fueled an extremist movement unlike anything we’d seen in a long time. The tone it created was a poison pill that crippled Congress, preventing government from performing its most basic duties, like passing a budget.

Over this past year, I’ve never been more inspired. Thousands and thousands and thousands of you stepped up to the plate and sacrificed – your time, your money, your energy – to make our country a better place. Your passion will be etched into my memory forever.

This week, we learned that we succeeded. We set out to defeat Rep. Bachmann, and that has been accomplished. You should feel incredibly proud. After all, it was the grassroots movement you built that kept the pressure on and forced Rep. Bachmann from her seat in Congress.

I’ll never be able to thank you enough for being part of this team. But after struggling with this decision – agonizing over it with my friends, supporters and family, I’ve decided to suspend my campaign indefinitely.

As I said, I’ve never faced a more difficult decision. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your support and dedication.

Your friendship means the world to my family and me. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Jim

Bachmann almost lost her re-election to challenger Jim Graves last year. I’m convinced that had the election been held a few weeks later, Graves would have won. Recently, internal polling data from within Bachmann’s campaign became known, and showed that as of a couple of weeks ago Bachmann was actually behind Graves. Bachmann’s response to this polling was an ad buy; the Bachmann campaign started up early with local ads, clearly indicating one thing and strongly suggesting another. For one, Bachmann had decided to run for re-election as of several days ago. She bought campaign ads. That’s pretty clear. Two weeks ago or less, Michele Bachmann was a candidate for re-election to the sixth district and was spending money on that campaign. This is a fact that must be taken into account in figuring out what is going on. The second thing this indicated was that she was nervous about the polling data and felt compelled to start early.

Then, suddenly, she announced that she would not be running. You don’t decide to run for re-election and actually craft campaign ads and buy air time for the ads and put on the air if you are not running. “I’m Michele Bachmann and I approved this message” means, very clearly, that she was in fact running for re-election. Why, then, did she suddenly stop running for re-election? Even with poor polling numbers, this does not make sense. The polling numbers were not abysmal. She was about five points behind, very close to the margin of error. This is not a number that in and of itself would recommend abandoning a campaign. Also, the numbers were known to her campaign before the ad buy.

There are two other possible explanations for her withdraw, I think. One is that something bad is about to happen and she is bugging out before that occurs. The other is that she noticed that there was another office up for election and has decided to run for it. Let’s examine those two possible explanations.

The most likely explanation for her withdraw is probably that her recent attempts to negotiate away a law suit being filed against her failed and she’s about to be dragged into her own little Watergate, or other civil or criminal legal problems loom that her campaign knows more about than we do at present:

Someone from Michele Bachmann’s 2012 presidential campaign team stole an email list off of Barb Heki’s laptop. This list was from the evangelical home school organization for which Heki played a leadership role… She sued.

…

Today, the court scheduled the trial.

… and later that day Bachmann made her video bowing out of the campaign.

A second explanation is that Bachmann noticed that the Junior Senator from the State of Minnesota, Al Franken, is up for re-election and, at the time she made her plans to announce her withdraw, had no serious challengers. This is the preferred explanation among local Minnesota pundits. Why? Not because it is the best explanation, but because it is the coolest explanation. Al Franken only barely won his seat during the last election, but there are very specific reasons for that, and these reasons simply don’t apply today. Senator Franken went from never having held elected office to being one of the most respected and effective Senators in Washington. How did he do that? He is a) very sincere about his public service and b) very smart. Well, also, his hard work and the excellent support from his family and staff and all that too. Bottom line: The people of Minnesota understand that Al Franken is a great senator and he will be re-elected.

Al Franken isn’t just a great Senator, but he is also one of those guys we watch for the entertainment value, and I’m not referring here to his earlier career as a comedian satirist. Have you seen him in action? Here’s an example. I would not have wanted to have been a grasshopper living in Little Al Franken’s yard when he was a little boy in Ednia, Minnesota.

That was Subtle Al. Here’s another:

Here’s Al with a very smart witness trying to trip him up. Starts at about 1:27:

Not in chambers, about Fox, and reforming our Math education system at the same time:

And here is Al Franken eating a lawyer before lunch:

For comparison, here is Michele Bachmann:

Can you imagine it? A Franken-Bachmann campaign? Pure Political Squeee. Bwahahaha to the Nth power.

So, you can see that no matter how unlikely it may be that Michele Bachmann would actually have quit her seat in the house in order to run against Al Franken, we insist on keeping it on the table as a possibility because, well, it is something to live for.

There is a third possible explanation for Michele Bachmann’s withdraw; A better offer from Fox or some other corporation. This has been suggested by various commenters but I think it unlikely. Yes, expect such a thing to occur at some time in the future, but I believe that Bachmann truly sees herself as a savior of The Constitution and will generally act with that motivation before other considerations. Of course, the first and third explanations can be linked. If she is facing high costs from impending legal battles, bowing out and getting a nice contract with Faux News would be the thing to do.

Finally, I would like to express my great relief that Bachmann is bowing out. It has been a great burden to me … as the person who got her political career started, feeling responsible all these years for having created this particular horror. Now, finally, I’ll be able to sleep nights.

Stay tuned. And, beware of falling boots.

She claims to have suddenly grown the opinion that there should be term limits on Representatives in the House, but that is not very likely the reason. It could be that she is behind in the polls, and it could have something to do with the impending criminal and ethics investigations. If it the latter, perhaps we should be expecting some news in the near future regarding these investigations.

Either way,

Maybe she plans to run for Senator against Al Franken?

OH please, please, please, let it be so!

UPDATE: Here’s Michele Bachmann’s YouTub video explaining how wonderful she is and stating that she WILL run for public office if she decides it is necessary for her to save the United States of America from itself. She also states that it is necessary for her to save the United States of America from itself, so do indeed expect her to run:

All interesting ideas. I’d like to add to this one small twist: Bachmann could have been overlooked for positions of responsibility by the GOP establishment because she is a woman. The GOP engaged in a Gettysburg Level attack on women (and others) over the last year, and were summarily defeated. This led me to recently suggest that the war on Gay Marriage, at least, had reached it’s “High Water Mark.” In the case of the War on Women, having lost that, the GOP establishment may be taking out their frustration on their own women, the members of their own party who happen to have two X Chromosomes.

Anyway, back to Pendergast’s point. When I read his post, I had to ask myself, being a scientist and all, if Bill was using the correct null model, or at least, the correct assumption. Might it be the case, I wondered, if CongressCritters are generally quiet this time of year, after the election? Is it possible that Michele Bachmann is not being unusually silent, just normal? As shocking as that prospect may sound, it is something that needs to be considered, to be fair, honest, and scientific. So, pursuant to that, I went back in time to the period in 2008 that corresponds to the last few post-election weeks, running a bit into December for good measure. It turns out, Bachmann was not being quiet.

And so, I give you here a sampling of post-election Michele Bachmann:

November 19th 2008
Bachmann says Franken stuffing ballot box, anti-American comments urban legend

Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann appeared on FOX’s Hannity & Colmes last night to spew some more great quotes to get everyone riled up. She knows what people hate to hear.

In her interview, she accused Al Franken of stuffing the ballot box. She then continued pushing the “ballots in the car” rumor despite it being proved false and clarified by Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Then she said her statements on MSNBC’s Hardball were “urban legend” even as the host reads the transcript aloud to her. What is going on here?

November 19th, 2008
Bachmann rips Obama, Franken denies anti-American remark

Michele Bachmann, appearing Tuesday night on Fox News show with Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes, derided President-Elect Barack Obama as “more of the same” over reports that many of his new appointments are recycled Clintonistas.

The Minnesota Republican also accused DFL Senate candidate Al Franken of trying to “stuff the ballot box” in his recount struggle with GOP incumbent Norm Coleman.

All the while, Bachmann managed to reserve enough ammo to dismiss as an “urban legend” reports that she had suggested on a pre-election episode of the “Hardball” show with MSNBC host Chris Matthews that Obama and other members of Congress were “anti-American,” and that the media should investigate them as such.

Resident Fox liberal Alan Colmes, who read a transcript of Bachmann’s “anti-American” quote from her appearance on MSNBC, offered to have her watch the video clip of her remarks on his own web site. But the segment ended before Bachmann could fully respond.

Not, however, before Bachmann pummeled Obama over some of his recent presidential appointments, including the pick of former President Clinton official Eric Holder as Obama’s new attorney general.

Novemer 20th, 2008
Bachmann can’t stop talking about socialism

Rep. Michele Bachmann loves coming up with the zingers. Apparently she still loves talking about how the United States is slowly becoming a socialist nation. Run for your lives!

In her latest Fox News interview (which she won’t let us embed on our site) she continues to scare Americans that the Democratic House and Senate will slowly suck our country into socialism and ruin our lives.

There’s more, but that’s probably enough.

Yeah, it seems that Michele Bachmann is being, relative to herself, quiet.

This ad comes at a time when Jim Graves has been shown in polls to be statistically even with (but a couple of points by count behind) Bachmann. So far, Bachmann has been relatively silent, which was probably a good move for her because she seems to have a hard time not spewing Crazy Talk when she doesn’t remain silent. This move by the GOP PAC, to underscore Bachmann’s crazy, is probably a good thing for the Graves campaign.

Notice that in the ad, they try very hard to get a picture of Graves, who is a calm, mild mannered, reasonable, thoughtful person, to have a crazy Bachmann-like look in his eyes, while at the same time making Bachmann not look so crazy. Unfortunately for the Bachmann campaign, it is a little late for that.

We drive by that mill several times a year. At one time it made paper for only two clients: The two main local newspapers, and it made most of their paper. But newspapers are dwindling in production, and so paper mills are fast becoming a thing of the past. This mill, we now know, will not be re-opened. The Sixth District needs to retool its industry and commerce. That will require some leadership, which will not come from Michele Bachmann.

You know what to do. Get out your credit card and CLICK HERE. Seriously. Click there.

Here’s Jim Graves at the convention:

That’s pretty normal for Bachmann.

What is not typical, however, is the negative reaction she’s received for her batshit crazy accusations. Sure, we expect Anderson Cooper to say what he said.

Thanks for the explanation, Anderson.

What we did not expect, however, was former Bachmann campaign manager Ed Rollins going after her. This from an editorial on Foxnews.com:

There is little that amazes me and even less that shocks me. I have to say that Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s outrageous and false charges against a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin reaches that threshold.
Her unsubstantiated charge against Abedin, a widely respected top aide to Secretary Hillary Clinton, accusing her of some sort of far-fetched connection to the Muslim brotherhood, is extreme and dishonest.,,,I am fully aware that she sometimes has difficulty with her facts, but this is downright vicious and reaches the late Senator Joe McCarthy level.

Um … Ed …. this is nothing new. When you were working to put Michele Bachmann into the oval office, to become the most powerful person on the planet earth, your candidate had already said things like this and worse many times.

John McCain also went after Bachmann. From ABC News:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., took to the Senate floor today to rip apart his fellow Republicans’ accusations and came to the defense of Abedin, whom he calls a “fine and decent American,” after observing her work as both a long-time aide to Clinton while she was a Senator and as the Secretary of State.

“These sinister accusations rest solely on a few unspecified and unsubstantiated associations of members of Huma’s family, none of which have been shown to harm or threaten the United States in any way,” McCain said. “These attacks have no logic, no basis, and no merit and they need to stop. They need to stop now.”