Yet somehow Barney Frank is still in office. And Al Franken. And a bunch of other not-so-pretty people. Maybe Bachmann was sabotaged. Can’t have the people choosing their own leaders - they will be chosen for us.
The “somehow” is incumbency bias in the case of Barney and flat out vote stuffing in the case of Al Franken. These are phenomena that exist in the “marketplace”, in the environment, that are knowable and in some, perhaps many cases overcomable.
If I wanted to convince you that Joe Speedster was the greatest race car driver in history and then showed you footage of Joe in a formula 1 car on the starting line with flat tires, you would think “WTF?
If I wanted to convince you that another guy was the fastest runner on earth and showed you a race where he tripped on his untied shoelaces, same result.
Bachmann is new material, she is *not* what voters are used to. She has to be sold, or sell herself to some extent. That is not a complex realization. When you see an “expert” slip up over an amateurish mistake or misstep, you and I may know better and may overlook it; or we may not. But no sale is going to be made to the unconverted. Even if I were the biggest 0bama supporter ever I would be dreadfully embarassed by Robert Gibbs. I know lots of liberals who like Nancy Pelosi and think she’s grand but think her delivery needs polish. That’s all I’m saying.