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Analysis: The GOP’s Michele Bachmann problem
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“... Bachmann presents a particular headache for the GOP. The Tea Party helped propel Republicans into office by attacking Democrats; now, with the dirty work done and popular support for centrist compromise growing, wild cable TV statements are looking more like a liability. And Bachmann is Exhibit A. But by withholding from her the formal power she believes she has earned, the GOP has probably compounded the problem. As Bachmann's time in the Minnesota state senate made clear, rejection by party elders has a way of energizing her. If things had gone her way, Bachmann might have been tempted to move past Mama Grizzly extremism, but now, she'll be sticking with it. Boehner should have seen this coming.
The new dynamic is already in effect: After the GOP put the less tea-stained Jeb Hensarling of Texas in the conference chair position, Bachmann moved rapidly from faux-graciousness to promising an insurrection "against our own leadership" if it failed to accomplish what the Tea Party had asked for. ...
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The next slight came when Bachmann was passed over for a seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee for which she was rumored to be canvassing and which would have inserted her into tax-policy debates and into the coming health care showdown. Instead, the steering committee slotted her for the House Intelligence Committee, a rather Machiavellian move: While on paper it's a prestigious assignment, the committee's workings are intrinsically hush-hush. As one observer told Politico, "If you're looking for media and controversy, that's not the committee to be on." That's particularly rough for Bachmann, powered as she is by media attention. ...
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Twice disappointed, Bachmann turned back to the business of making her own news. ...
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... she certainly won't slouch away in the face of the House leadership's rejection, nor will she work quietly at its bidding. And in one sense, that's admirable: For all the talk about how the Tea Party has been particularly welcoming to women, and for all the movement's championing of traditional womanly jobs as excellent preparation for politics, it's striking that its two most prominent faces, Bachmann and Palin, have approached their political careers in what could be considered a stereotypically male fashion. ...
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In some ways, Bachmann is quite workmanlike: She is a tax attorney who wears sensible shoes, one who got to be a demagogue the hard way, by doggedly showing up to throw flames at appearances large and small. But when it comes to the bigger picture, she, like Palin, has figured out that putting her nose to the grindstone won't get her where she wants to go all that quickly and that she can make better use of that appendage by keeping it out of joint—and on cable news, preferably. Had Boehner and company given Bachmann a seat at the table, they might have contained her. Ambulatory, she'll run amok.”
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