Saturday, June 25, 2011

An Open Letter to Michele Bachmann

Dear Representative Bachmann,

You first caught my attention and admiration as an outspoken critic of Obamacare. Of course, two years ago most Republicans and a few Democrats (as well as a majority of the American people) were opposed to Obamacare, so that in itself wasn’t so newsworthy. Specifically, I admired your poise and grace under the boorish attack of Arlen Specter, when you insisted that you were acting like a lady for making your point and not allowing him to interrupt you. You have been in the news many times since, and your stances seem sound. So I believed that you were a true Tea Party patriot.

However, I am dismayed at the recent turn of events, in which you hired GOP sell-out Ed Rollins to manage your campaign, refused to fire or even rebuke Mr. Rollins for his baseless and quite foolish attacks on your ally and benefactor Governor Sarah Palin, and announced your candidacy for the presidency by positioning yourself as “the” Tea Party candidate.

Because of your outspoken criticism of Obamacare and your conservative stance on social issues, you had been dismissed, criticized, derided, and attacked by both the media and by the GOP establishment as “The poor man’s Sarah Palin.”

Yet suddenly, within the space of a few short weeks, we are bombarded with article after article from mainstream journalists commenting on your seriousness, your potential electability, your rising stance in the polls. In short, the media appears to believe – or at least to want us to sincerely believe – that you are a force to be reckoned with. They want to make you a star. 

It should be obvious that we are witnessing a massive orchestration of subterfuge and misdirection intended to hand the nomination to Mitt Romney. We know the major media – 90% of whom voted for Obama last election – do not like true conservative/libertarian politicians. We know that these articles they are writing about you, pretending to take your candidacy seriously, do not demonstrate that they have suddenly decided to like you. (They pretended the same thing to Bob Dole and to John McCain, and as they did to those candidates, they will drop you once you have accomplished their ends.) These articles simply confirm that they have decided to use you.

Representative Bachmann, are you unaware that they – both the liberal media, who want the GOP nominee to fail, and the GOP establishment, who want the Tea Party to fail – are using you in this egregious fashion? Do you realize that they are deliberately stoking your ambitions, egging you on to grasp for something they have no intention of bestowing, propping you up as long as it suits their purpose and then intending to hang you out to dry?

Or have you actually cut a deal with the GOP establishment, and are you in on this one yourself? Have you been specifically recruited to whip up a bit of modest Tea Party huzzah, with an end game of handing the nomination to Romney either by diluting the Tea Party vote or by dropping out at a crucial moment, throwing your support, your momentum, and your money to Romney? Did he promise you the VP slot? Because you know he won’t give it to you. You can’t break into this GOP good ol’ boys club. You have to break it up.

I’d like to think that you are innocent of this great ploy, but that would paint you as incredibly naïve, gullible, and delusionally ambitious. You could be all that and still be a great Representative to the good people of the 6th Congressional district of Minnesota, so I’ll leave that one up to them for the next election cycle. Perhaps you could ask your fellow public servant Governor Sarah Palin to come stump for you, help you raise money, and drag you across the finish line again as she did in 2010.

However, I do see one good way out of this for you. In fact, it’s the only way you can realistically come out of this with any kind of political future. This involves a bit of subterfuge, of slyness and cleverness on your part, and most of all, integrity and idealism. This solution proves that you can play politics and win, and gets you off the hook for being called a Judas for the rest of your life.

Suppose you know what you are doing. Suppose you know what they are doing. Suppose you know that they are trying to play you, trying to game the primaries, and play the honest Republican voters out there. Suppose you didn’t think you could call them on it, because no one would believe you when the media still painted you as a Tea Party darling (read: lunatic fringe), as recently as a few months ago. You had to gain access first. You had to pretend to be an insider so you could get inside to blow the whistle. You had to let them build up the momentum of portraying you as a serious candidate, so that when you speak out on the corruption and cronyism going on in the GOP ranks, you could be taken seriously. You’ve been carefully saving all the emails from Romney’s team, offering you the VP slot or some coveted Cabinet position; all the memos from JornoList (or is it CabaList, now?), documenting all the backroom deals being brokered; and you’re going to air it all when the time is right.

I really hope that’s your plan, Representative Bachmann. I’d like to go back to liking and mostly agreeing with you. For now, I’ll have to watch and wait.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Citizen

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