Michele Bachmann (R-Mars) Wows Them in Iowa
Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin tried to laugh off Michele Bachmann’s presidential chances, but yesterday at Rep. Steve King’s “Conservative Principles Conference,” the looniest wingnut politician in America was the star of the show.
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), one of the most conservative members of the House, hosted the day-long conference, which drew hundreds of activists. It was the second conservative gathering of the month in the state to draw a handful of presidential hopefuls — the first was hosted by a religious conservative group — and was another reminder of how deeply intertwined fiscal and cultural issues are in the state with the nation’s first presidential caucuses.
The possible presidential candidates included Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, businessman Herman Cain, and former United Nations ambassador John Bolton. But it was Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) who lit up the gathering with a rapid-fire denunciation of the president that had the audience on its feet cheering.
“Are you in for 2012?” she called out to the audience. “Are you in? Are you going to make it happen? Are we going to take our country back?” As the applause built, she concluded by saying, “I agree with you. I say we do. I say I’m in. You’re in. We will take this back in 2012.”
Politico has another report on Bachmann’s deranged speech, chock full of far right red meat talking points: Michele Bachmann steals the show in Iowa.
Talking loudly and waving her hands, a pumped Bachmann used a slide presentation of various numbers — the national debt, the cost of a gallon of gas two years ago the day before Obama took office, the corporate tax rate — to make her points and pull the crowd in. …
She called for a “fair tax” and said that the “current United States tax code is a weapon of mass destruction.” …
She then started firing up the crowd, saying, ”Does anyone remember the trillion dollar stimulus bill? Did President Obama correctly diagnose the problem with job creation. ..what’s his level of credibility on job creation?”
The crowd replied, “No!” …
After a few other similar exchanges with the crowd, Bachmann invoked the president’s failed Final Four predictions and said, “Now he’s got us engaged in another third middle eastern war? Talk about March Madness, can anyone say Jimmy Carter”
She also made a joke about Chinese President Hu and the national debt, saying “So we know now that Hu is your daddy.” …
“The Constitution holds the answer. … We the people,” she said. “We are the answer to the problem today in the United States because you need to be pushed back in charge of your own health care. … The federal govt doesn’t have a clue how to create jobs. You do.” …
Bachmann also was the lone candidate of the event at the time she spoke to mention an issue that’s certain to be hot in the GOP primary - immigration - in her speech. She talked about miles of unprotected borders as part of her slide-show presentation.
And she addressed calls for a GOP truce on social issues, saying, “We’ve been told we need a truce on social issues and I would highly disagree with that because social conservatism is fiscal conservatism.”