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:

For starters, it seems she may have used presidential campaign staff to support her book tour during her unsuccessful bid for the presidency last year. The Star Tribune reported on April 17th that

Congressional ethics investigators are examining whether top staffers in Rep. Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign played an improper role in the 2011 tour to promote her personal memoir, two former Bachmann aides have told the Star Tribune.

Federal election rules, as well as House ethics rules, prohibit the use of campaign funds to promote or sell a candidate’s book or to support other business activities.

Also, her campaign may have stolen or otherwise inappropriately obtained an e-mail list of Iowa homeschoolers from one Barbara Heki, presumably for use in the Iowa phase of the campaign. Heki has initiated a law suit alleging that Iowa Senator Kent Sorenson stole the list from her personal computer. This has led to a criminal investigation by police in Urbandale, Iowa and the Iowa State Police, and is apparently being looked at by the Federal Election Commission and the Office of Congressional Ethics.

In addition, it has ben suggested that Senator Sorenson received $7,500 a month via the Colorado based consulting firm C&M Strategies, which is run by Bachmann’s fundraiser Guy Short. The money, or some of it anyway, may h ave come from Short’s other group, MichelePAC. This is apparently also a violation of ethics and campaign rules and/or laws.

The latest development makes this list of oddities suddenly very relevant. These alleged activities came to light in part from information provided by former Bachmann staffer Peter Waldron, a pastor from Florida. As this story has unfolded, there was a second witness to these events identified by the FEC known as “Witness A.” Now, Witness A has been identified as former Bachmann chief of staff Andy Parrish, and he is expected to testify, giving collaboration to Waldron’s claims which have been denied by the Bachmann camp.

According to the Star Tribune,

The six-member panel — made up of three Republicans and three Democrats — also directed the Secretary of the Iowa Senate, Michael Marshall, to get an update on the status of the police investigation in the Heki case.

Iowa Sen. Wally Horn, a Democrat who chairs the ethics committee, said the panel felt it needs to move forward to resolve the allegations or dismiss them. Waldron originally filed three complaints against Sorenson with the ethics panel in January. One of them, alleging improper business disclosures, has been dismissed. The other two complaints, alleging hidden payments and misappropriation of the e-mail list, are still pending.

Horn said he hopes to resolve the ethics complaints before the legislature adjourns next month. Meanwhile, two sources close to the Bachmann campaign have told the Star Tribune that congressional ethics investigators have questioned them about allegations that her presidential campaign played an improper role in her 2011 book tour.

And the, of course, there’s the whole dwarf-mud-wrestling thing.

Well, today, Graves has announced that he will run again. He figures that he came close enough last time to make it possible for him to do it again only get those 4,000 votes or so he needed last time.

“These days Congress is all about scoring political points rather than actually solving problems and Minnesota’s 6th District — my home — is losing out because of that more than anywhere,” … “I’m not interested in celebrity, only in solutions.”

Bachmann has responded to Graves as she responded to every one of his moves during the last election: Sending around a fund raising letter linking Graves to a highly subversive and anti-American organization known to most of us as the Democratic Party.

In related news, Bachmann has won the 2013 Daily Kos Republican March to Madness Tournament. By a landslide.

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.

She explicitly says, without any window dressing, that there are Americans, and there is Islam, and the Muslims are the enemy. No punches pulled here. And, she explicitly says that President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton are aiding and assisting the enemy.

This was at the so called “Values Summit” which, I think, they didn’t know was being video taped. I assume.

And there are polls to indicate that this may be the case. Jim Graves, Michele Bachmann’s DFL opponent in the Sixth District Race in Minnesota, is creeeping closer and closer to Bachmann’s numbers, and it is possible that this race could even up over the next few weeks.

From the Minnesota Progressive Project:

A new poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan indicates that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is more vulnerable to her Democratic challenger than previously believed.
The polling firm surveyed about registered likely voters in the Sixth Congressional district of Minnesota from August 29 to August 30. The results indicate only forty per cent of the voters in Bachmann’s politically conservative district rate her performance “Excellent/Good.” Thirty-five per cent of those polled rate Bachmann’s performance “Poor.”

Asked who they would vote for if the election were held today, forty-eight per cent of those polled indicated that they would vote for incumbent Bachmann and forty-six per cent indicates they would vote for her opponent Jim Graves, a newcomer to politics.

Minnesota Political expert Bill Pendergast gives his analysis of this here. That site is getting a lot of sudden attention so it may take a moment to load, give it time.

Of critical importance is the fact that Graves has a strong advantage for future movement of the polls. From MinnPost:

The poll also show that Graves’ name ID in the district has jumped 20 points, though he’s still largely unknown at 38 percent. Meanwhile, Bachmann is known by 99 percent of voters. That will make it harder for Bachmann to change peoples’ perceptions about her, while Graves should be able to influence people who do not yet have an opinion of him.

This is not the only race in Minnesota that has a chance of replacing a Republican with a Democrat. Stay tuned.

If I go south to Iowa, which I’ve done mainly to get somewhere requiring me to go through Iowa, I can tell I’m getting close to the border because a huge red barn looms on the horizon, and that barn, which is fake, is known as the Top of Iowa Visitor’s Center. It’s on Interstate 35 (God’s personal highway) and from there south it’s just a couple of hours to Ames, which will be important to know about in a moment.

The barn is funny to me for this reason: If you go past the big red fake barn and keep an eye off to the west, right away you’ll see another big red barn that is actually on a farm, and it looks pretty much the same. Then, if you keep going on Interstate 35, or get off Interstate 35 and hit some of the side roads, you’ll see more and more of those big red barns. We’ve got a lot of barns in Minnesota, and not far from where I grew up there were a lot of barns, and I hear they have them in California, but Iowa has the lock on the big red barns. I scoured the web for a shot of one, just a regular big red farm barn like they have all over the place in Iowa, and found this one by Carl Wycoff, kindly placed on Flicker with a creative commons copyright. Here’s Carl’s picture, click on it to go to the original:

(While you’re over there, have a look at this shot too. Very nice.)

I mention the barns for this reason: If you’ve been watching the news about the so-called Iowa Caucus, there are two images you can not have missed. The most common one, of course, is the big red barn in the background of every outdoor shot. You might have been thinking that this was some kind of setup, some sort of diversion, or a trick to make you think the people of Iowa are genuine or something, but where they build the big red fake barn movie set and shoot all the politicians in front of it. But no, that’s not it at all. You can’t swing a dead muskrat in Iowa without hitting the broad side of a big red barn. That’s how it is. Iowa is for real.

But it is funny to me that we pay attention to the so called “Iowa Straw Poll.” Which is actually the Ames Straw Poll, one of several held around the state, but the only one we count. We as a nation ask the Iowans their opinion about who should be the leader of our entire country, and we pay a lot of attention to what they say, and it matters. But really, who are the Iowans and why should we care about what they say?

For one thing, it is important to note that something like 20,000 people max ‘vote’ in the straw poll. Seven one hundreds of a percent of our population, who live mainly in central Iowa, represent all of us for this event. How typical is Iowa of the rest of the country? And, does the nation go as goes Ames?

Iowa is 91.3 percent white. It is 84% “white not Hispanic.” By comparison, the North Star State is 85%/83. For a further comparison, the coolest county in Minnesota is 74/72. For the US it’s 72/74. Iowa is quite white.

US average income is about 27K/50K (personal/household) For Iowa it’s 25K/48K. But while the national poverty level is 14%, in Iowa, it’s 11%. About 29 percent of US business are woman owned. In Iowa it’s 25 percent. These all sound like similar numbers, like Iowa is typical, but that’s how it goes when you look at entire states. Iowa is a bit off the average in all ways that the typical red state is.

But still, the State of Iowa is in the middle, both geographically (it is kinda in the middle of the US, if you look at a map) and demographically, economically, and in the other usual ways. So, given this, why is it that Iowans are … well, the way they are? And what, exactly, do I mean by that?

This is where the turtle races come in. The turtle races are held in Longville, Minnesota. There are other places that have turtle races these days, like Niswa, Minnesota and I hear there’s one somewhere else nearby, but Longville is the original and the only one of any importance. It is held every Wednesday during the summer. Main street is closed down, so to drive through town you have to go on the dirt roads. A turtle race looks like this:

First, you’all get in a big ring with your reptiles and line them up on the edge:

Then, when the race starts, you jump up and run away.

Then, the turtles, which do not like being on the hot pavement, run away. The first one to get to the outer ring wins. The one that goes the least distance also wins.

This is done several times and then, at the end, all the winning turtles in both the speed category and the slow poke category go for that weeks’ championship.

The turtle race iteslf is fun, but that is not the part that relates to Iowa or Iowans. The part that relates to Iowa and Iowans is before the turtle race.

Before the race, a stage is set up from which the races are called, and booths are set up where kids can play silly games, and local merchants set up tables to sell their wares, and food vendors show up to sell food. The most popular food vendor is probably the “mini donut” truck which sells mini donuts, but mainly, sells deep fried cheese curd and deep fried funnel cake (Every culture has a form of funnel cake).

So, the stage is set up, the vendors are set up, and the crowd is thickening with people who have come to the northern part of Minnesota to enjoy the boating, the fishing, the mosquitoes, and the turtle races. But the races are not ready to start yet. Something else has to happen first.

The master of ceremonies for the Turtle Races, who I assumed for a long time was the Mayor of Longville (but I was apparently wrong) turns up the megaphone and draws the crowd’s attention.

“Welcome to the Longville Turtle Races”

Everybody turns and a smattering of applause happens.

“We’re going to have a great day today, if the rain holds out!”

More clapping.

“We’re going have some great turtle racing in a minute, but first we’ve got a few other things to do!”

Clapping, some cheering.

“First, let me ask you, how many of you are from Iowa?”

Cheering, hundreds of hands go up. Most of the Iowans are standing near the Turtle Race arena or near the adjoining kiddie booths. Most have already acquired the button and ribbon and sticker that they will wear for the race. The button has a number on it and the sticker, which comes off the ribbon, has a corresponding number, and is affixed to the turtle. They’ve paid a buck or two per race. The ribbon also has the race number (there are ten). So they’re standing around in the middle of main street, maybe 150 of them, most with turtle race ribbons, hands in the air declaring that they are form Iowa, and the people standing out father, on the sidewalks or farther up main street, are watching them and they don’t have their hands up. They are the Minnesotans.

“Anybody from North Dakota?”

One guy’s hand goes up.

“South Dakota?”

No hands are raised.

“So, South Dakotans… they don’t like turtles. But I’m glad to hear there’s lots of Iowans here! Welcome to Minnesota!”

Cheers and clapping.

“And we’re going to get to the turtle races in a few minutes, but first, you all know what it’s time for!”

And now, cheering and clapping, but this time from the Minnesotans standing around the edge. The Iowans are not sure what it’s time for.

“It’s time for the Chicken Dance.”

And at this point, the Iowans are rounded up into the middle of the turtle racing arena and made to do the Chicken Dance.

Iowans doing the chicken dance. Sorry for the bad quality of the footage: It was taken with a camera hidden in a deep fried cheese curd.

They love it. They were not expecting this bonus activity. And they’re pretty darn good at it. A couple of local teenagers instruct them from the stage.

“That was great. But now it’s time for the … The Hokey Poky!”

And the Iowans do the Hokey Poky. And boy, are they good at that! Many are quite inventive.

“That was wonderful! Now, it’s time for the Macarena!”

They kill the Macarena.

“OK, everybody, let’s see you dance to YMCA!”

There is a bit of hesitation because it is a gay dance, but they comply.

“And now it’s time for the hoola hoop contest!”

And there are four versions of the hoola hoop contest. Several Iowans will be going home with trophys this week! Well, not exactly trophys, but gift certificates that can be used to buy a portion of an ice crime cone at the ice cream shop on Main Street.

And then, finally the Turtle Race. And if you win the turtle race, which cost you two bucks to enter, you get a gift certificate worth 50 cents towards the purchase of an ice cream cone or candy bar.²

And then, they go home and elect the leader of the free world.

But not really. Because the Ames Straw Poll (which is known as the Iowa Straw Poll) has predicted the outcome of the United States general election for President of the Unites States of America …. exactly once.

In 1980 George HW Bush won the poll but Ronald Reagan won the nomination and presidency. In 1987 Pat Robertson won the poll, but George HW Bush Won the nomination and presidency. In 1995 Bob Doll and Phil Gramm tied the poll, Bob Dole won the primary Bill Clinton won the presidency. In 1999 George W. Bush won the poll, the primary, and the presidency. They got that one right. In 2007 Mitt Romney won the poll, John McCain won the primary, and Barack Obama won the presidency.

Oh, and now we get to the item I mentioned above … I said that if you’ve been paying attention to the poll related news, you’ve repeatedly seen two images, a big red barn and another one. The other one is, of course, Michel Bachmann, who won the poll this year.

Photo by Toby Harnden

The Iowa poll started out as bunch of Iowans expressing their opinions very early in the presidential race, but it has turned into an activist run event (and this probably happened early) and tends to favor the crazies. Pat Roberston is the guy who blamed the Haiti earthquake on a deal that 18th century Hatians made with Satan. Phil Gramm is only slightly less insane than Pat Robertson. George W. Bush … well, the entire country went crazy for that decade. And now, Michele.

So the poll rarely predicts anything. It certainly does not shape anyone opinion. Mainly, it’s a big giant chicken dance, run by outsiders who bring the Iowans together and get them to put on a show which may or may not have political utility for someone, but certainly has little to do with what we need to do as a nation. Which would be, well, not racing turtles.

Iowa. You are a stupid state. Please try to do better.

¹You guessed it: They worked for a publishing company.
²I brought a friend to the Turtle Races a few weeks ago and we watched all this happen. And while I was there I calculated in my mind how much money the good citizens of Longville, Minnesota, of which there are 271, make in this city-run event. I’m pretty sure that they don’t need to pay taxes! Thank you very much Iowa!

Photos of the turtle race by the author.

If you are annoyed with Michele Bachmann’s racism and anti-gayism please donate to a candidate that opposes her. She is using the video you watched to raise money. Good idea.

Do spread this video around, please.

Below the fold: Michele Bachmann’s gay step sister and her friend in DC supporting Obama.

Helen LaFave and Nia Wronski at the Inauguration Jan. 20, 2009 from julie phillips on Vimeo.

Hat Tip Dump Bachmann