Ranting On...the Future of Michele Bachmann

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)

Trying to figure out what's going on with Rep. Michele Bachmann has long been a party game of mine.  Being from Minnesota, she's constantly in the news here not just for her national brand of "headline-seeking" but for normal, random comments she's made as well.  Bachmann, as many of you know, declined to run for a fifth term in the House, effectively ending her congressional career.  Many people (myself included) thought that this would be the end of her career in politics as a result.  She'd sign a lucrative deal with FOX News as a correspondent, perhaps, or be scooped up by the Club for Growth or another conservative group aimed at running primaries against incumbent Republicans, and we'd move on to the next flavor of the conservative right (currently Ted Cruz, in the future perhaps Glenn Grothman or Jody Hice).  However, from statements made this past week by the congresswoman, she apparently has different ideas, labeling herself the anti-Hillary, which has continued to fuel speculation that the congresswoman will make another long-shot bid for the White House in 2016.

Most people look at that sort of thought and laugh, and it is indeed absurd that Rep. Michele Bachmann would be able to run for and win the presidency.  She's taken on too much baggage through the years, and considering the ethics charges against her in the House, it's unlikely that she'd be able to stand up to the pressure of being the nominee were she to somehow pull that off.  My larger question, though, is two-fold: why did Bachmann give up her seat when she clearly isn't ready to be done with politics and what would a Bachmann presidential run look like in the already crowded field for 2016?

The first question is one that only Bachmann could truly explain, and she almost certainly never will, but I'll give it a shot anyway.  Bachmann likely saw the writing on the wall in her district after her 2012 re-election campaign left her with a less-than-5000-vote margin of victory (making it one of the closest races in the country).  She was going to be a perennial target thanks to her beliefs (and more explicitly, her extremely public and polarizing profile).  People in her congressional district who would normally vote for Republicans would vote specifically against her, which was always going to cost her big time, which ran the risk of her losing and thus destroying her political capital.

The larger problem with this thought process is that Bachmann leaving Congress instantly puts a ticking clock on her viability in a presidential race and the public consciousness.  You may quibble, particularly considering that Mitt Romney voluntarily left office a few years ago and was the nominee in 2012, but Mitt Romney is an extraordinary situation.  For starters, he used his brief out-of-office window wisely, ranking up a solid enough showing in 2008 to become the Republican heir-apparent in 2012 (he also benefited from one of the weakest primary fields the Republicans have ever put together in 2008).  Michele Bachmann already ran for president, and it didn't go over well (not even after she won the Ames Straw poll)-this would be her second, and probably last viable shot-why give up your seat in Congress when you could have that to fall-back on for relevancy if your White House dreams collapse?  It's a similar thought process that Sarah Palin had when she resigned the governorship, and while Bachmann's probably would go over better with the public (she didn't give up the seat midterm), it's the same practical effect-without a perch where you voice clearly matters (being a voting member of Congress), you're more at risk for people to move on to a different, louder, newer voice.  Bachmann needs that relevancy to guarantee a spot in the conversation, and she's now giving it up.

Secondly, she won four straight elections.  Love her or hate her, the people of her district clearly fall enough in the former column to send her to Congress four times in a row, and though she'd be a perennial target, that doesn't mean by any means that she wouldn't be able to win a fifth or sixth term in office.  I think it was foolhardy of her, unless she was planning on going entirely the route of Palin and simply do the "celebrity" thing, to give up the only major office she has any hopes of winning.  The risks of her losing (and therefore killing her political career) are significant, but the risks of her losing her public platform without a congressional seat to back her up are even higher.

That being said, I do think that there's a place for Bachmann in the 2016 race, primarily because of Hillary Clinton.  Looking at the race, we see names like Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Rob Portman, John Kasich, and Ted Cruz, a veritable who's who of the Republican Party, but it's not difficult to see that there's no women on that list.  The reality is, though, that most of the Republican Party's most important women seem to have no interest in running. Sarah Palin gave up her best shot at running in 2012, and seems unlikely to go in 2016 when the odds are higher of her losing.  Govs. Susana Martinez, Mary Fallin, and Nikki Haley are surely the most significant Republican women in the country and would be taken seriously as contenders, but none of them have expressed any interest in being president (though don't be surprised if you see one of their names seriously thrown around for the second spot, especially if Hillary is at the top of the ticket).  The Senate leaves few options: most of the women are either too moderate (Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins) or too new to the national scene (Deb Fischer, theoretically Joni Ernst) to run; Kelly Ayotte is frequently thrown out there, but she seems more interested in the VP slot, and she has her reelection to worry about in 2016.

About the only women that are seriously considering a run that have some stature in the Republican Party are Rep. Marsha Blackburn (TN) and Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard.  Fiorina is mentioned by the media as an answer to Hillary, but honestly the woman has never held public office and her campaign in 2010 was a bit of a joke against Barbara Boxer.  Blackburn would probably be the only serious threat to Bachmann's perch,  but that's really it and even then Bachmann is better at raising money and has the higher profile.  If one person says no, Bachmann becomes by far the most prominent woman in a race filled with men, and with the Democratic Party trumpeting all over the media that it's time for a woman president, inevitably some of that would wash onto Bachmann.  She won't be the nominee (hence why I think giving up that House seat was the wrong decision), but we aren't quite done with Michele Bachmann after January.