Bachmann is not my favorite Republican but if you said we could fill the Capitol with either Bachmanns or Rubios, I’d choose Bachmanns without hesitation.
Much of this has to do with what Grover Norquist referred to as ‘marginalizing’ the opposition.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3009500/posts?page=1#1
Such as:
No One’s Paying Attention to Michele Bachmann on Immigration This Time
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/04/michele-bachmann-immigration-reform/64224/
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio went on seven Sunday talk shows to pitch a bipartisan immigration reform deal, while a handful of Republican lawmakers famous for their wacky cable news interviews can’t get any attention. An anti-immigration “gang of six” in the House is trying to stop the pro-immigration “gang of eight” in the Senate, The National Review’s Robert Costa reports, but hardly anyone’s listening. The six are cable TV favorites: Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann, Iowa’s Steve King, Texas’ Louie Gohmert, Alabama’s Mo Brooks, Pennsylvania’s Lou Barletta, and California’s Dana Rohrabacher. There were zero “anti-amnesty” Sunday show guests the week before Rubio’s grand tour. The most popular cable guests of the six — Bachmann, King, and Gohmert — haven’t been invited on cable to talk immigration in the last three months, according to Lexis Nexis. They complain the GOP isn’t listening to them either.
“The meetings of the Gang of Eight and the secret meetings in the House of Representatives — the people who have been standing up for the Constitution and the rule of law haven’t been invited to those meetings,” King tells the assembled group of reporters...
“We’ve got all the rich guys and the elitists talking to each other,” Rohrabacher says. “Unfortunately us regular folks don’t have that kind of coordination.”
The Daily Caller’s Mickey Kaus lamented last week that in the Sunday political talk shows, the networks didn’t even haul in “the kookiest anti-amnesty crackpot.” The GOP doesn’t want to hear from the kooks either.