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I would love for someone with her political positions to also have the charisma to win a national election. It's what we've all been waiting for since Reagan.

Bachmann's demeanor is not one of a happy warrior. She's a firebrand conservative that can't shake the harsh edges which means she probably can't appeal to the general public. Times change though. If we were in an outright depression and times were so bad that the public was actually looking for toughness rather than finesse, Bachmann would do a lot better.

I can't really put my finger on just why she doesn't come across particularly well. I think she really blew it early on with her screeching over the HPV thing. I don't think anyone here agreed with Perry's decision on that, but Bachmann just took it to another level with her hysterics and it just didn't wear well with even conservatives. "Oh the humanity, oh the poor 12 year old girls!" (not her exact words but you get the point), it was just too much considering the policy never even went into effect. Throwing in that bit about the shot causing mental retardation seemed to have finished her campaign off and she never recovered.

Bachmann is very smart and knows policy well - possibly better than all the other candidates aside from Gingrich. Unfortunately, being right just isn't enough in politics. It's frustrating, but that's life and it isn't going to change. A slick, polished politician can be wrong about everything policy wise yet destroy a candidate who actually has the right ideas but doesn't have the political skills to match. Of late, many on FR are rebelling against this fact - but it's a waste of time because human nature is what it is and people will fall for slick packaging as long as we walk this earth.

If Bachmann wins the nomination I will vote for her. I think there is a logical case to be made that she is the best conservative on policy in the race. Unfortunately, she doesn't have the right demeanor, charisma or personality to win a national presidential election at this time.

I'm just dying to know specifics on this topic - it's very frustrating that supporters have just all herded up and run away from her. It makes no sense if there are no specifics, you know ? It's like saying "I just don't like her".

I would love for someone with her political positions to also have the charisma to win a national election. It's what we've all been waiting for since Reagan.

Bachmann's demeanor is not one of a happy warrior. She's a firebrand conservative that can't shake the harsh edges which means she probably can't appeal to the general public. Times change though. If we were in an outright depression and times were so bad that the public was actually looking for toughness rather than finesse, Bachmann would do a lot better.

Thank you for the specifics !

Now, lemme do some "just dumb ol' me" thinkin' about them, try to analyze (can I do that ?). Hmmm...

On the one hand we're looking for the charisma of Reagan and she does not have it. Ok....

Now, next she is a "firebrand". Is that charismatic ? Perhaps she gets all screaming and "crazy" ? Too hot or too cold. I dunno.

I looked at the hour-long video I posted above, and I didn't see bland, blah, blah droning on. She seemed engaged in an interesting conversation with the reporters. For an hour. She smiled quite a bit. No loud voice, calm. Not droning on and on, but articulate. In the whole video, I see a person who's balanced, not too excited, not too unexcited. Kind of a sparkle in the eye, good eye contact with the reporters. She handled some real dopey questions like waterboarding that one j@ck@ss kept harping on like a baboon. I would have walked out, but she was fine with it, just kept stating her points and soldiering on with a great demeanor. It seemed like an excellent interview.

I can't really put my finger on just why she doesn't come across particularly well. I think she really blew it early on with her screeching over the HPV thing. I don't think anyone here agreed with Perry's decision on that, but Bachmann just took it to another level with her hysterics and it just didn't wear well with even conservatives. "Oh the humanity, oh the poor 12 year old girls!" (not her exact words but you get the point), it was just too much considering the policy never even went into effect. Throwing in that bit about the shot causing mental retardation seemed to have finished her campaign off and she never recovered.

Maybe this is where I differ from most other conservatives. I'm very skeptical of big medicine. I'm a programmer and troubleshooter for 25 years, so I'm very analytical. And I've seen family in the "healthcare" system as patients, I've got some insight into the medical device industry, pharmaceutical sales, etc. For instance, I know firsthand that artificial joints and bones are somehow magically able to be manufactured in the good ol' USA. But what of "it's too expensive to manufacture things in America ?" Easy - there's big money in those things, plenty of money for a fat profit.

I've done my little "analysis", and I know that most of "healthcare" stinks to high heaven of ripoff. Prices are artificially high because of insurance and government money subsidizing and enabling high prices. There is little downward price pressure. With Romney or Newt, I think we would see that grow even more. And healthcare is what now, 25% of GDP ? That's a huge drain on everyone not in the healthcare industry. But then again, I'm not too naive to realize that the big money that is there to be made did go a long, long, long way to yielding improvements in medicine. So, I try to be realistic and have no illusions; get savings where you can, push for good care for yourself, try to be smart, don't fall for scams. Hopefully one way we will actually get a decent freemarket system, starting with cutting out the insurance middleman for claims, instead making the insurance payments be for capitation fee continuation.

I also had stepchildren in the public school system in the past decade. And I saw.... yuck.... that system from the inside out. I saw firsthand how vaccinations have become a racket. Can't afford them ? No problem, a local doctor has a "deal" with the school to handle all "indigent" cases. People think the doctor (HHAAAA) is doing this out of the goodness of his heart. He gets paid. Gubmint money. Woo-hooooo ka-ching ! Fee-for service means every vaccine administered is more money for the doctor and the manufacturer.

I've also seen firsthand side effects of medicines and treatments. I've seen - from inside a pharmaceutical sales company - what the attitude is about class action lawsuits about harm done by drugs. It's simple, maximize revenue. With a little web research, if you start finding smoke around a medicine or a treatment, there is fire. And usually it is way worse than initially thought.

So that's why I actually was one of the tiny minority who felt exactly the same as Michele did. And I understand where most conservatives are pro-business like I am. And I have to remind myself always that every business is not run the way I would necessarily think is right. Some are run terribly, and that is why they have legal problems (and sometimes unions), because the business is run penny-wise and pound foolish. So Michele, I understand, has an uphill battle to get all these conservatives to come around to the idea that perhaps there is going to be some point at which we will stop adding more vaccination requirements in spite of the lobbying efforts of big pharma. How many should kids have ? 20 ? 50 ? 200 ? What was even worse with this is the subtle pushing of fornication on children. The liberals were laughing over this one. A "sex" pill - literally telling kids they're going to have sex anyway, now they'll be "safe" if they have their vaccination. I've had stepchildren in public school, I know for a fact, firsthand, how they are pulled into thinking and doing things by friends is 100 times as alluring to them as the parent trying to restrain them. I have seen good kids lie. Lie, lie, lie. I'm sick I can't go to school. The next day, I can walk all over town seeing my friends. I've seen how teachers, administrators, counselors - all will "write off" kids that are outsiders and just shake their heads, shrug, "well... you know"... when other kids influence them to do things that the parents forbid them from doing at home. The school is acting en loco parentis while kids are at school - and it fails utterly. Giving kids a vaccination which has been publicly advertised as preventing STDs is such an obvious ploy at encouraging fornication that it's beyond the pale.

What really gets me is that almost every single abortion is performed on a mother whose circumstance of conception was fornication (I posted this elsewhere). If you add up every case of adultery, rape, incest and married couples where the child was purposely killed in the mother's womb, it would be far, far smaller than those where the circumstance is fornication. Most people - including Christians - subscribe to the awful lie "well, they're going to do it anyway, can't stop'em". Fornication is a sin. If I was told that when I was young and actually took it to heart, I would have made FAR fewer mistakes in my life. But, like most people, I believed in the delusion that fornication was normal and "ok".

The minute you talk about this subject, people accuse you of wanting to "control everyone's life", have government "in the bedroom", etc. Which is a lie. The true Christian is simply stating the truth out of love for those who are lost. Would that someone had only told me the truth sooner !

From the time Europeans first showed up in America until the 1960's - there were laws against fornication, sodomy and adultery.

The TRUTH is - during that time police were never "in the bedroom". In fact, a person's domicile was FAR more respected by the government than it is today.

The KEY factor in having laws against fornication, sodomy and adultery was the situation that it created in society: if the crime did come out in the open and evidence of it was made public, it could be prosecuted in a court of law. That does not mean automatic conviction and jail, but a trial like any other crime.

So, if Mr. Politician took his mistress to an inn on the Cape for the weekend, and there were a dozen witnesses who would testify and his signature in the sign-in book, he could be prosecuted.

For most of history, parents did not simply accept that their children would go a-fornicating. And the state was not luring their children to do so, nor was the state stopping them from punishing their children if they had moral lapses, nor was the state telling their children and society that fornication was acceptable and expected. I can't help but wonder, with the Sodom and Gomorrah that we accept and even embrace, just what end do we expect ?

If these edges be harsh, then God have mercy on us.

All that being said, thanks for humoring my rant. And thank you for, I think, getting to the specifics of what I was looking for. I think you captured the essence of it.

While I personally have not seen anything from Michele that would make me want to criticize her, and the left-wing did the best they could to Palinate her (with the loyal Republican establishment holding their coats), I'm hoping that conservatives can take a little time to re-read her positions on the issues and take a fresh look at her, being sure to see completely through anything the hate-machine of the left has engrained into our image of her. Maybe conservatives will be able to embrace the idea of enough is enough with the state forcing citizens to accept medicine, life and death only on government's terms. I can't find a situation where laws and regulations purported to "protect citizens", e.g., the SEC, EPA, FDA, FCC, etc., do not wind up actually securing the leverage and profits of the big businesses that they supposedly regulate, providing them with millions of captive, even docile customers. FWIW, I can't see the harm in keeping government inside it's Constitutional cage.