One less goofball for our entertainment: Michele Bachmann bows out

[CountDeMoney]

Bachmann Won't Seek Re-election Next Year
By GERRY MULLANY
Washingtonpost.com

Representative Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican who made an ill-fated run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, announced Wednesday that she would not seek a fifth term in Congress next year.

She made the announcement just six months after being re-elected in what was her most challenging Congressional campaign since she was first elected to the House in 2006. Her announcement also comes as her former presidential campaign faces inquiries into its fund-raising activities.

"I have decided next year I will not seek a fifth Congressional term," she said in a video on her campaign Web site. "This decision was not impacted in any way by the recent inquiries into the activities of my former presidential campaign or my former presidential staff," she added.

Mrs. Bachmann is known for her strong anti-abortion stance and adherence to Tea Party values but her presidential campaign was marked by frequent stumbles and her candidacy failed to catch fire in a crowded field of candidates that included Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Herman Cain, who all eventually lost to Mitt Romney.

In her congressional race last year, Mrs. Bachmann won re-election by just 4,200 votes out of 356,000 votes cast, beating the hotelier Jim Graves, who was greatly outspent. Mr. Graves recently announced that he would seek the seat again.

"My decision was not in any way influenced by any concerns about my being re-elected to Congress," she said. "If I ran I would again defeat the individual who I defeated last year."

Her announcement comes as the Office of Congressional Ethics looks into claims by Ms. Bachmann's former campaign aides that she may have improperly used money raised by one of her House-affiliated political action committees to help her presidential bid in the run-up to the Iowa presidential caucuses in January 2012. She came in sixth in that race, even though she campaigned heavily in the state. The defeat led her to pull out of the race the next day.

While her presidential bid initially excited Tea Party supporters, Mrs. Bachmann would later find herself upstaged by conservative opponents like Mr. Cain and Mr. Santorum, and she was prone to misstatements, including saying the vaccine against the human papillomavirus was linked to "mental retardation."

But her campaign was not without impact. Her victory in the Ames, Iowa, straw poll in the summer of 2011 forced Tim Pawlenty, the former Republican governor of Minnesota, to drop out of the contest early, after he did poorly in his neighboring state.

In her video announcement, Mrs. Bachmann did not rule out returning to politics in the future.

"There is no future option or opportunity, be it directly in the political area or otherwise, that I won't be giving serious consideration if it can help save and protect our great nation for future generations," she said.

She also said she expected "the mainstream liberal media to put a detrimental spin" on her decision not to seek re-election, calling its attention to her political fortunes "a true compliment of my public service effectiveness."

Ms. Bachmann had been a largely obscure member of Congress from Minnesota before the emergence of the Tea Party in 2010. She seized on the movement to brand herself a national voice of conservatives and become the leader of the "Tea Party Caucus" in the House.

In January of 2011, Ms. Bachmann delivered her own, unofficial "Tea Party" response to President Obama's State of the Union address. She mocked the president's fiscal policies and urged a repeal of the president's health care plan known as Obamacare. But the brief, televised response prompted comedy sketches because of its low production values and because Ms. Bachmann appeared to be looking off to the side throughout her remarks.

[Caliga]

Guessing we'll see her on FOX News shortly.

[CountDeMoney]

I'll trade the Intelligence Committee for Fox News.  That's a win for America.

[derspiess]

She & Chris Matthews should have a show together.

[Martinus]

Oh, I thought she died. Pity.

[Darth Wagtaros]

She & Chris Matthews should have a kid together.

[11B4V]

Damn it. What a boring primary then.

[11B4V]

There's still hope 

(Newser) – A little more than six months after President Obama's re-election, Donald Trump is once again making noises about a White House bid. The Celebrity Apprentice star—who played will-he-or-won't he for months during the 2012 campaign—has spent $1 million on electoral research and claims many people have urged him to run for president, the New York Post reports. "We did not spend $1 million on this research for it just to sit on my bookshelf," a Trump spokesman says. "At this point Mr. Trump has not made any decision on a political run, but what I would say is that he is exactly what this country needs."

[Barrister]

There's still hope 

(Newser) – A little more than six months after President Obama's re-election, Donald Trump is once again making noises about a White House bid. The Celebrity Apprentice star—who played will-he-or-won't he for months during the 2012 campaign—has spent $1 million on electoral research and claims many people have urged him to run for president, the New York Post reports. "We did not spend $1 million on this research for it just to sit on my bookshelf," a Trump spokesman says. "At this point Mr. Trump has not made any decision on a political run, but what I would say is that he is exactly what this country needs."

Bah - he's going to do what he did before - make noise about running thus generating a lot of free (or mostly free) publicity for himself, and then not run.

[crazy canuck]

Bah - he's going to do what he did before - make noise about running thus generating a lot of free (or mostly free) publicity for himself, and then not run.

You want him to run?

[11B4V]

Bah - he's going to do what he did before - make noise about running thus generating a lot of free (or mostly free) publicity for himself, and then not run.

You want him to run?

Fuck yea.

[Barrister]

Bah - he's going to do what he did before - make noise about running thus generating a lot of free (or mostly free) publicity for himself, and then not run.

You want him to run?

I want the media to not pay attention to him unless he does actually run.

I know, fat chance.

[fhdz]

I think Alan Keyes should run again.

Or, barring that, Terry Crews should run as Herbert Love.

[Ed Anger]

I think Alan Keyes should run again.

Or, barring that, Terry Crews should run as Herbert Love.

Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho

[fhdz]

I think Alan Keyes should run again.

Or, barring that, Terry Crews should run as Herbert Love.

Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho

I'd vote for that.