Why Bachmann's Candidacy is DOA While Palin's Endures: An Historical Perspective

07/01/2011 | Brices Crossroads

[Brices Crossroads]

I recently posted an article suggesting that Mchele Bachmann's candidacy, and its impact on Sarah Palin, is reminiscent of the 1980 candidacy of Phil Crane, which Ronald Reagan considered a threat to his nomination:

Is Michele Bachmann Sarah Palin's Phil Crane?

LINK

As I point out in the article linked above, Crane never really thought he had a chance for the nomination, and he was content to have one of the moderates (Baker or Bush) get the nomination in hopes that they would install Crane as the Vice-Presidential nominee. I did not explore some of the reasons why Crane's belief was well founded.

2012 looks to be very similar to 1980. The Eastern Establishment candidate, Mitt Romney, will be matched against the conservative Western former governor, Sarah Palin in roughly the same way that George H.W. Bush faced off against Ronald Reagan. 2012 also involves Michele Bachmann, conservative Congresswoman from the Midwest, whose opposite number in 1980 was Crane, a rock solid conservative Congressman from Illinois. As Crane was poised to damage Reagan, so (it is assumed)will Bachmann siphon votes from Palin. It must be conceded, however, that even with the similarities, no two cycles are precisely the same.

Why, one might ask, did Phil Crane believe that his chances for the nomination were slim? Quite simply, no Congressman, since James A. Garfield in 1880, had ever won the Presidency. Indeed Garfield (who was a dark horse selection on the 30th ballot of a brokered convention) was the LAST Congressman ever nominated by either party. But Michele Bachmann's prospects for the GOP nomination are even bleaker than were Crane's in 1980.

In order to give Bachmann's electoral viability every benefit of the doubt, let's expand the subset to which she belongs (that is: House members) to include members of the United States Senate as well. Sure, Bachmann has never won a state wide race. But just for the sake of argument, let's assume that she is U.S. Senator Bachmann, instead of Congresswoman Bachmann. The GOP has nominated three members of Congress in the last fifty years, all Senators with long tenures, specifically Goldwater, Dole and McCain. There hasn't been a sitting member of Congress--Senator or Congressman--nominated AND elected by the GOP in nearly 100 years, since Senator Warren G. Harding turned the trick in 1920.

The Democrats on the other hand--as the statist party-- have had recourse to Congress (again, only the Senate) more often, and more successfully, than the GOP. In the last 50 years, they have nominated four Senators-- Kennedy, McGovern, Kerry and Obama-- two of whom (Kennedy and Obama) won and only one of whom suffered a landslide defeat (McGovern). The Democrats as the party of Washington, are comfortable nominating candidates from the Congress, and their base responds favorably to them. The GOP, as the anti-Beltway party, is always more formidable with an Executive, whether a Governor, a former Vice President or a Commanding General than with a member of Congress. Indeed the GOP tends to nominate Senators only in years in which the prospects of victory are slim.

In 1964, the country, still reeling from the Kennedy Assassination, wanted stability. As Barry Goldwater himself observed, the country did not want three Presidents in eleven months. Goldwater lost by 20. In 1996, the economy was on the upswing and Clinton looked difficult to beat, especially with Perot planning a third party run. So the GOP could comfortably nominate the ancient Bob Dole, knowing well that the White House that year was beyond reach. Dole was beaten by 10. In 2008, the collapse of the housing market and the economy, war weariness and Bush fatigue presaged an electoral disaster for the GOP. The pre-convention polls had the Democrats comfortably ahead by anywhere from 6 to 15 points. After a brief surge into the lead (fueled by Palin's surprise VP selection and boffo convention speech) the stock market crash drove a stake through Senator John McCain's chances for an upset. In spite of the crash and his Beltway tarnish, however, McCain--aided by Palin-- ran better than any of the other recent GOP Senate nominees, losing by only 7.

Unlike 1964, 1996 and 2008, the GOP in 2012 has a genuine, indeed excellent. shot at victory. It is not going to exacerbate the disastrous formula of those election cycles by nominating a mere Congresswoman whose resume is even thinner than the Senators who went down to crashing defeats. 2012 is a year in which the GOP will nominate a governor to challenge a President, who came from Congress without Executive experience and has been a catastrophe. It will have two governors to choose from...Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin. Those who are inclined to vote for Michele Bachmann should know that they are very likely casting a vote for Mitt Romney. Bachmann cannot generate the political or financial support to defeat Romney, nor can she overcome the visceral reluctance of anti-Washington GOP primary voters to nominate a member of the hated Congress. Her impact, if she has any at all, will be to assist Mitt Romney in securing the nomination by drawing voters away from Palin. Let us remind our confreres, whom Bachmann is trying to lure, that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.

[ansel12]

She’s the leader of the Tea Party Caucus in congress.

Cantor ate her lunch, wouldn't give her anything and treated her the same way she has always been treated by stronger personalities during her entire, totally blank, legislative career. She had to form her own thing to chair.

[Gargantua]

Last cahnce, bone brain.

My "Œdipus" allusion was a direct humorous reference to your apparent "Mommy" fixation; which in a dissociative latent Œdipal complex would not necessarily extend beyond the "Mommy fixation." You obviously make the neophytic error of confusing the complex (and its psychological manifestation), and the play by Billy. The psychological reference requires no lighting, director, understudies or curtains, either, stool-face.

You poor, sad tool, you don't even know the correct "Oe" ligature "Œ", and while you butcher "Œdipus" by using the lazy "Oe", you're then even more abysmally ignorant enough to accuse me of not spelling it correctly because I used the grammatically appropriate ligature.

You are beyond douchebag, beyond stupid, and beyond help. Please, go pester someone more your own speed... try a kindergarten for slow kids. Don't be surprised when they think you're stupid, too.

;^\

[shield]

bfl

[duckln]

She also, from that chair, gave a brilliant response to Obamas' SOTU. Despite the MSM
fooling around with the cameras.

[ansel12]

Like I said, put her on a stage, or in front of a camera and she speaks just fine, but she is empty, impotent, and insignificant down in the trenches, and has nothing of accomplishment or leadership to show for her entire career.

[ansel12]

Body for Life? Do you sell their product?

[Windflier]

Linking to supportive articles from left-wing news sources to bolster your candidate doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

[Windflier]

one little problem about Palin. She isn’t running. At least not that I’ve heard.

Oh, you will. It'll be ALL you hear for at least a week, after it happens.

[Windflier]

Palin is fairly unpopular outside her tiny base in the Party and is essentially a lone wolf. Bachmann is more articulate than her and more credible, IMO.

Do you honestly believe all that? I can't believe that anyone who's been paying the slightest attention over the last two and a half years could say such a thing with a straight face.

The truth is that most Americans are only just now hearing Michele Bachmann's name for the very first time. She may be well known to us hard-core news junkies and the Tea Party, but that's about the extent of her reach.

Love her or hate her, 99% of Americans who aren't in a coma know who Sarah Palin is. And, as far as popularity among the politically active right is concerned, allow me to share this with you:

CafePress has seen its T-shirt sales predict the winner of the previous three presidential elections...

[Political Junkie Too]

Better article. It depersonalizes it from Bachmann and speaks to the reality of where the candidates come from -- where the candidates initially inherit their strengths and deficiencies.

-PJ

[GlockThe Vote]

Oh friggin please. Take your crap elsewhere. Rush just takes everything from fr and drudge and packages it in an entertaining way. He is a master of it, but I have not learned anything new on his show in years.

Don’t you get bored listening to those you already agree with 99 percent o f the time?

[Georgia Girl 2]

Well I hope she announces pretty soon. At some point the horses have all left the gate and its hard to catch up. Personally I think Sarah Palin should have announced in June.

[Windflier]

Well I hope she announces pretty soon. At some point the horses have all left the gate and its hard to catch up. Personally I think Sarah Palin should have announced in June.

GG, Sarah's not late to the race - the others are early. They're a bunch of nervous nellies who all reacted in a panic, and jumped before the starting gun was fired.

Traditionally, US presidential primaries have begun between late summer and early fall of the year prior to the election. What we're watching now, is something of a pre-primary, which is little more than a demolition derby. By late summer, the field is going to be littered with smoking wrecks. Why would Sarah want to expend time and energy trying to campaign in that mess?

She's got plenty of time to announce, and the success of her campaign isn't dependent on big donors, or the establishment political machine. Sarah's got the people, which is what really wins elections.

And as far as "catching up" is concerned, the other campaigns are essentially over, once she declares. It's they who are desperately trying to outrun her by getting a head start.

[SeekAndFind]

RE:Linking to supportive articles from left-wing news sources to bolster your candidate doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

1) Assuming that she’s my candidate by my simply questioning the premise of the title does not inspire confidence in your reasoning either.

2) There are also non-lefting sites that observe the Bachmann surge.

HOTAIR being one of them.

See here :

http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2011/06/16/surge-bachmanns-numbers-up-after-debate-now-second-behind-romney/

Newsmax is not a left wing site, they observe the Bachmann surge too. See here :

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/MicheleBachmann-poll-newsmax-donaldtrump/2011/05/25/id/397678

So, if various sites observe the same thing, it has to be more than fiction.

[Windflier]

if various sites observe the same thing, it has to be more than fiction.

Hmmm.....

From your Hotair link:

"A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely GOP Primary Voters, taken following the candidates’ Monday night debate, shows Romney earning 33% support, with Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann a surprise second at 19%."

Forgive me, but weren't they scoring a debate?

From your NewsMax link:

"25 May 2011

Michele Bachmann is the big winner in a stunning new Newsmax poll showing the Minnesota congresswoman and businessman Herman Cain surging among voters in a hypothetical Republican presidential primary.

The InsiderAdvantage/Newsmax survey that ended on May 24 shows Bachmann with 11.8 percent of the overall vote. That’s way up from the 4.3 percent she was garnering in April and early May, according to an average of several polls compiled by RealClearPolitics."

That poll is five weeks old, which means that it's practically from the Dark Ages. Lots of things have colored the race, since then. Cain is now fast disappearing, and Bachmann has made some costly blunders in that time.

The only polls she's currently leading (as far as I know) have all been generated or commissioned by the MSM. That's not very confidence-inducing, if you ask me.

Now, here's something I just ran across that I find extremely interesting. Admittedly, it bolsters my argument for my chosen candidate, but these are real stats that are darn near impossible to monkey with.

CafePress has seen its T-shirt sales predict the winner of the previous three presidential elections...

[curth]

Not ridiculous at all. Neither has any record of note, and absolutely no executive experience.

[magritte]

"And your point is what? That what Reagan did is different from what Palin is doing?"

My post was not about Palin, but about the idea that Reagan's campaign didn't start until November 1979. However, if you wish to compare, Reagan's substantive campaign run to election in 1980 has little if any similarity to the "campaign" run of Palin at this point. Palin is a pale reflection of Reagan at this time. If she wishes to scale to those heights, she'll have to put in more work.

[magritte]

If you believe that the campaign run of Reagan and the “campaign” run of Palin are similar, all I can tell you is to break out a few history books. There’s no comparison.

[ansel12]

Palin has been running since 2008 is what I was saying in those 8 words.

Palin is the closest thing to Reagan that we have seen in our lifetimes, but she is running her campaign in her own appropriate, creative manner.

[newfreep]

LOL!

Clearly you have embraced the NYC/east coast liberal/RINO wing of the GOP...assuming you’re not the typical DU/HuffPo socialist idiot.

Yep, your lips are around the rear side of Batchelor, a long-time RINO/Liberal and his snarky elitist comments...and you reject Rush. That says it all, troll.

So long, newbie CHUMP - you’ve been exposed!