Evolving Media and Congressional Troublemakers

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the impact of social media and campaign technology.

Eric Cortellessa at Time reports on  Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL)

To some, she’s a dangerously effective new version of the millennial MAGA politician ready to tear down the institutions of government in pursuit of an ultraconservative revolution. To others, she’s something more, the vanguard of a potentially significant turn in American politics. Luna is less a politician who parlayed her seat in Congress into a huge online following—like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—than the other way around: the first social media influencer to parlay an online audience into a seat in Congress.

...

Part of Charlie Kirk’s job is to live on the internet. The pro-Trump activist and podcast host created Turning Point USA with the goal of creating an army of influencers to combat what he saw as the left-wing tilt on college campuses and in popular culture. One day in 2018, Kirk was struck by an Instagram video of a ferocious Latina immigration hawk. “It was literally a rant on how the news was full of it and they weren’t being transparent about what actually happens at the border,” Luna says. But the clip caught on like wildfire. “I saw that she was a natural talent from Day One,” Kirk says. He thought Luna had the same kind of magnetism he saw in Candace Owens, his first big discovery. “I realized she really had a spark.”

Kirk called Luna to offer her a job heading Turning Point’s Hispanic outreach operation. Luna was intrigued, but there was one problem. She was about to leave for medical school in Grenada. Kirk, a prodigious fundraiser, told her not to worry. He would reimburse her for the costs.

“That’s where I changed paths,” Luna says.

Back in olden times -- a dozen years ago -- it was cable.  John Boehner recalls:

Besides the homegrown “talent” at Fox, with their choice of guests they were making people who used to be fringe characters into powerful media stars. One of the first prototypes out of their laboratory was a woman named Michele Bachmann.

After the GOP takeover in 2010, she demanded a seat on Ways and Means. Boehner politely declined.

Her response to me was calm and matter-of-fact. “Well, then I’ll just have to go talk to Sean Hannity and everybody at Fox,” she said, “and Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and everybody else on the radio, and tell them that this is how John Boehner is treating the people who made it possible for the Republicans to take back the House.”

I wasn’t the one with the power, she was saying. I just thought I was. She had the power now.

She was right, of course.

He assuaged her with a seat on Intelligence. 

 

 

The Sanders Threat

At National Journal, Josh Kraushaar writes of Bernie Sanders:

In the past, the notion of an unreconstructed socialist winning widespread support—even as a protest candidate—would have been fanciful within the Democratic Party. The closest recent parallel to Sanders is Dennis Kucinich, who tallied less than 4 percent of the total primary vote in 2004. Ralph Nader's high-water mark was in 2000, when his 2.7 percent third-party tally was nonetheless enough to spoil Al Gore's hopes for the presidency. Other progressive insurgents within the party, from Vermont's own Howard Dean to Bill Bradley to Gary Hart, were squarely within the party's mainstream—even if they stood on the leftward side of it.
...
ke the tea-party stirrings among Republicans in 2009, the Sanders boomlet is a sign that liberal activists are getting restless, and looking for a fight. For the first time, congressional Democrats have shown a willingness to torpedo an important presidential initiative to placate the base. Organized labor is threatening to challenge vulnerable moderate Democrats in primaries if they vote for the president's fast-track trade authority. One of the most pugilistic progressives in Congress is getting closer to a Senate bid, even though it could endanger the Democrats' prospects for a Senate majority in 2016. The newly-aggressive grassroots are letting their ideology blind them to the political realities of the moment.

...

This is the real threat that Sanders poses to Clinton—not as a candidate, but as a sign that the Democrats' version of the tea party is ascendant at the worst possible time. By nonideological standards, Sanders is a weak challenger; he's got an unhealthy mix of Donald Trump's ego and Michele Bachmann's bombast. He's won statewide office in Vermont, the most liberal state in the country, with a population smaller than Bachmann's old congressional district.Sign up form for the newsletter

But Sanders is poised to play the same role as Mitt Romney's 2012 GOP tormentors, a motley cast of characters who stood no chance of winning the nomination but gradually pushed Romney to the right. After all, Romney's infamous line about "self-deportation" was a reaction to the fear that he was vulnerable on his right flank from the likes of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.

Chris Christie and Rand Paul Make Campaign Stops in Crazytown

Vaccines made a brief appearance in the 2012 campaign.  The issue is back.  Like Michele Bachmann before them, Chris Christie and Rand Paul have made campaign stops in Crazytown.

CROSS-POSTED FROM AUTISM POLICY AND POLITICS:

The New York Times reports:

Gov. Chris Christie’s trade mission to London was suddenly overshadowed on Monday after he was quoted as saying that parents “need to have some measure of choice” about vaccinating their children against measles. The New Jersey governor, who is trying to establish his credibility among conservatives as he weighs a run for the Republican nomination in 2016, later tried to temper his response. His office released a statement clarifying that “with a disease like measles there is no question kids should be vaccinated.”

 Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a physician, was less equivocal, telling the conservative radio host Laura Ingraham on Monday that parents should absolutely have a say in whether to vaccinate their children for measles.

“While I think it’s a good idea to take the vaccine, I think that’s a personal decision for individuals,” he said, recalling his irritation at doctors who tried to press him to vaccinate his own children. He eventually did, he said, but spaced out the vaccinations over a period of time.

... 

Asked about immunizations again later on Monday, Mr. Paul was even more insistent, saying it was a question of “freedom.” He grew irritated with a CNBC host who pressed him and snapped: “The state doesn’t own your children. Parents own the children.”

Nia-Malika Henderson reports at The Washington Post:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) both said Monday that they favor "choice" when it comes to whether parents get their kids vaccinated. This was seen by the Democratic National Committee as "kowtowing to the fringe rhetoric of the anti-vaccination movement."

"Chris Christie isn't a scientist. He isn't a doctor. And he sure as heck isn't a leader," DNC spokesman Mo Elleithee said. "If his campaign is going to be about kissing up to the radical, conspiracy theory base that’s wagging the dog of today’s Republican Party, that’s up to him and his cracker-jack team."

Here are some Democratic figures who might want to have a word with the DNC:

• Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD)
• Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)
• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Andrew Kaczynski reports at Buzzfeed:

For more than two decades, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was a member of a group, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, that advocated a link between vaccinations and autism, among other conspiracy theories.

The AAPS, as Kentucky’s Courier-Journal noted in a 2010 article on Paul’s association with it, opposes mandatory vaccinations and promoted discredited studies, which linked the vaccine-component thimerosal to autism in children.

“Mandatory vaccines violate the medical ethic of informed consent. A case could also be made that mandates for vaccines by school districts and legislatures is the de facto practice of medicine without a license,” the group said in a fact-check.

Paul’s adviser, Doug Stafford, told BuzzFeed News he didn’t know if Paul was still a member of the group but that he joined because it was a group of pro-life doctors. He said Paul does not endorse all the group’s views.

Jane Orient, who handles media for AAPS, said she did not believe Paul had renewed his membership.

Has Tea Party Fervor Cooled Off?

Josh Kraushaar notes at National Journal that pundits frequently cite the threat of tea party primary challengers as an explanation for congressional GOP voting behavior.

But as the argument became ubiquitous in 2013, something funny happened. The number of conservative challengers going up against GOP members of Congress hasn't developed as had been expected. In fact, there are currently as many notable Democratic primary challengers to incumbents as Republican intraparty battles. Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho is the only Republican currently facing a credible primary challenger, who is backed by the Club for Growth. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, facing blowback over passing a subsidy-filled farm bill, is the other member facing a similar threat. Freshman Rep. Rodney Davis is facing former Miss America Erika Harold in the Republican primary in Illinois, but few expect her to win.

Unlike in 2010 and 2012, when Republican divisions were front and center, there are as many noteworthy Democratic primary challengers this time around....

Meanwhile, only two members—GOP Reps. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and John Campbell of California—have announced their retirement so far, a low number that suggests members are hardly running scared from their next election.

...
 There are many reasons why that's the case. Conservative activists have already pushed some of their biggest enemies out of the Congress, leaving fewer targets behind. Outside groups aren't raising money the way they did in 2010 at the apex of the tea-party wave and in 2012 during the high-stakes presidential election. The disappointment felt by the grassroots after Obama's reelection sapped some of the base's enthusiasm. Jim DeMint, the main agitator inside the Senate, is now operating from the outside, with less political influence.

Bachmann Out

In After Hope and Change, we discuss the failed presidential candidacy of Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota), who just announced that she will not seek reelection in 2014.  At National Review Corner, I write:

Michele Bachmann’s retirement makes it much more likely that the GOP will hold her seat. Even though she represents a Republican-leaning district, she has tended to under-perform in the voting booth.  In 2008 and 2012, GOP presidential candidates carried the district by comfortable margins while she just squeaked by. Democrats have long used her as a bogeywoman in their fundraising appeals, and it is unlikely that the GOP candidate to succeed her will fire up the liberal checkbooks.

Saving the GOP

At Commentary, Micahel Gerson and Peter Wehner diagnose the GOP's problems -- changing demographics, inferior candidates, and unappealing messages -- offer a five-point plan for saving the party:

• First, and most important, is focusing on the economic concerns of working-and middle-class Americans, many of whom now regard the Republican Party as beholden to “millionaires and billionaires” and as wholly out of touch with ordinary Americans...
• Second, a new Republican agenda requires the party to welcome rising immigrant groups. When it comes to immigration, the GOP has succeeded in taking an issue of genuine concern—namely, the lack of border security—and speaking about it in ways offensive to legal immigrants, including vast numbers of Hispanics and Asian Americans (with whom Romney did even worse than Hispanics...
• Third, Republicans need to express and demonstrate a commitment to the common good, a powerful and deeply conservative concept. There is an impression—exaggerated but not wholly without merit—that the GOP is hyper-individualistic. During the Republican convention, for example, we repeatedly heard about the virtues of individual liberty but almost nothing about the importance of community or social solidarity, and of the obligations and attachments we have to each other. Even Republican figures who espouse relatively moderate policy prescriptions often sound like libertarians run amok. ...
• Fourth, the GOP can engage vital social issues forthrightly but in a manner that is aspirational rather than alienating.  Addressing the issue of marriage and family is not optional; it is essential. Far from being a strictly private matter, the collapse of the marriage culture in America has profound public ramifications, affecting everything from welfare and education to crime, income inequality, social mobility, and the size of the state. Yet few public or political figures are even willing to acknowledge that this collapse is happening....
• Fifth, where appropriate, Republicans need to harness their policy views to the findings of science. This has been effectively done on the pro-life issue, with sonograms that reveal the humanity of a developing child. But the cause of scientific literacy was not aided during the recent primary season, when Michele Bachmann warned that “innocent little 12-year-old girls” were being “forced to have a government injection” to prevent the spread of the human papilloma virus, adding that some vaccines may cause “mental retardation.” Bachmann managed to combine ignorance about public health, indifference to cervical cancer, anti-government paranoia, and discredited conspiracy theories about vaccines into one censorious package. 

Bubbles

The Republicans suffered from two bubbles that kept them from dealing with bad news.  One was the candidate bubble.  Karl Rove, as noted earlier, says that the Crossroads groups got no signal from the Romney campaign that they should keep pushing back against the Democrats' summer Bain offensive. At Bloomberg, Lisa Lerer says that while Democrats were defining Romney as the Villain Bain, Romney was focusing on his trip to the Olympics.

Romney’s campaign was dominated by an insular team that rarely tried to overrule the candidate. The captains of his effort, reclusive campaign manager Matt Rhoades and eccentric, message man Stuart Stevens, were survivors from the 2008 primary run. Others, such as senior aides Beth Myers, Eric Fehrnstrom, Peter Flaherty and Spencer Zwick, had been with Romney for much of their careers.

Still, it was Romney, chief executive officer of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, who insisted on going to London. Rather than pushing back on the proposal, aides added Poland to the itinerary to make the trip seem like more of a foreign tour.

It was Romney who refused to release his tax returns or talk about his personal experiences as a Mormon bishop, and invited actor Clint Eastwood to give an unvetted, prime-time convention address that quickly became a national punch-line.

There is also a conservative media bubble, as Jonathan Martin writes at Politico.  "Entertainment-based conservatives" want to boost ratings, not win elections.

The egghead-hack coalition believes that the entertainment-based conservatives create an atmosphere that enables flawed down-ballot candidates, creates a cartoonish presidential primary and blocks needed policy reforms, and generally leave an odor on the party that turns off swing voters.
...
The tension between entertainers and operatives-thinkers may have come into sharpest relief in the prolonged, and for many Republicans, painful 2012 GOP primary. The thinkers and the operatives cringed at the umpteen debates and carnival-like procession of candidates with little chance of landing in the Oval Office.

“Look at Newt Inc., [Herman] Cain and [Michele] Bachmann,” sighed Haynes. “What’s the purpose of entering a presidential primary anymore?”

Suggesting the incentives for getting in the race now owe as much to fame as to winning the job, Haynes added: “If that market didn’t exist, what would our primary look like?”

The sexual harassment scandal around Cain offered a vivid example of the different goals of the two groups. To the entertainment-based right, it was a great opportunity to rally the faithful against a purportedly liberal media targeting a black conservative. It touched almost every erogenous zone for the likes of Rush Limbaugh. But for the operatives and thinkers, the story threatened to tarnish the GOP with a sex scandal and make a martyr out of a marginal figure they were already cringing over before POLITICO reported the harassment charges.

Defections from Bachmann

Supporters of Michele Bachmann are deserting her in a very public and very embarrassing way.

From The Des Moines Register:

In a stunning, late-breaking Iowa caucus turnabout, the state chairman for presidential candidate Michele Bachmann ditched her campaign Wednesday night to endorse Ron Paul, a rival in the race for the GOP nomination.

The defection of Kent Sorenson, an Iowa state senator, came just six days before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, and caught the Bachmann campaign by surprise. Sorenson had chaired Bachmann’s caucus efforts here for months, and even attended a Bachmann event in Indianola on Wednesday afternoon just hours before appearing at a Paul rally in Des Moines to announce his endorsement.

“I believe we’re at a turning point in this campaign,” Sorenson said in his announcement at the Paul rally “… I thought it was my duty to come to his aid, just like he came to my aid during my Senate race, which was a very nasty race.”

Sorenson, an Indianola Republican, was elected to the state Senate in 2010 with support from Paul and his legion of Iowa backers. His announcement was greeted with sustained applause from a crowd of roughly 500.

From The Daily:

A political action committee which had planned to support Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign has very quietly defected to Mitt Romney — and it's spending big on his behalf.

Citizens for a Working America, the so-called Super PAC which aired TV ads against a Democratic congressional candidate last year, had indicated earlier this year that it was backing the Minnesota congresswoman in the GOP nominating contest. But the group instead made a $475,000 Iowa ad buy on Christmas Eve in support of Romney, according to Federal Election Commission data published today.

The so-called independent expenditure was listed as supporting Romney's candidacy, and an Iowa political operative who has seen the ad confirmed to The Daily that it's a 30-second positive spot about the former Massachusetts governor that doesn't mention any other candidate.

The Waves of the GOP Campaign

At The New York Times, Katherine Q. Seelye reports:

An analysis by The New York Times of more than 50 polls between June and last week shows a stark pattern of how voter sentiment shifted in defined blocks, first for Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, then for Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, then to Herman Cain, the former business executive. Support for Mr. Romney and for Representative Ron Paul of Texas remained fairly static.

The Times charts the candates' rise and fall here.

Newt's Surge Continues

From Public Policy Polling:

Newt Gingrich has taken the lead in PPP's national polling. He's at 28% to 25% for Herman Cain and 18% for Mitt Romney. The rest of the Republican field is increasingly looking like a bunch of also rans: Rick Perry is at 6%, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul at 5%, Jon Huntsman at 3%, and Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum each at 1%.

Compared to a month ago Gingrich is up 13 points, while Cain has dropped by 5 points and Romney has gone down by 4. Although a fair amount of skepticism remains about the recent allegations against Cain there is no doubt they are taking a toll on his image- his net favorability is down 25 points over the last month from +51 (66/15) to only +26 (57/31). What is perhaps a little more surprising is that Romney's favorability is at a 6 month low in our polling too with only 48% of voters seeing him favorably to 39% with a negative opinion.

From Bloomberg:

Herman Cain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romneyand Newt Gingrich are in a dead heat as the top choices for Iowans likely to attend the Jan. 3 Republican presidential caucuses.

A Bloomberg News poll shows Cain at 20 percent, Paul at 19 percent, Romney at 18 percent and Gingrich at 17 percent among the likely attendees with the caucuses that start the nominating contests seven weeks away.

Cain: Before the Fall?

Gallup reports:

Herman Cain is the only candidate whose Positive Intensity Score has increased in comparison to Gallup's initial measurement earlier this year. In fact, each of the eight candidates Gallup tracks began with scores in the double digits, but now only three remain in that range.

The current results are based on Oct. 17-30 Gallup Daily tracking interviews with more than 1,500 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. The candidates' scores have stabilized in recent weeks, with no significant change in any candidate's positive intensity since last week. The stability may not persist, however, as Cain is attracting scrutiny for allegations of sexual harassment while he was president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association. All interviews in the most recent field period were conducted before that story broke. Gallup's update on positive intensity next Tuesday will show whether the news is having an effect on Cain's image among Republicans.

Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Perry have seen their images deteriorate the most since earlier this year. Perry and Bachmann saw increases in their positive intensity scores at earlier points in the campaign and ranked among the leaders for a time before fading. Now Bachmann's score of 3 is lower than all other candidates' scores except Huntsman's -2. All of these candidates were less well-known at the time of their initial measurement but have made substantial gains in name recognition since.

Bachmann Jumps Shark, Gets Bitten

At Politico, James Hohmann nicely sums up reactions to Bachmann's vaccine comments:

CONSERVATIVES TURN ON BACHMANN-The left already loathes Bachmann, so you can discount their outrage [evident in today's Gail Collins column: http://nyti.ms/qTY7xd]. The reason this gaffe has legs is that it seems to be the last straw for heretofore friendly conservative bloggers. Three examples:

Jonathan Adler at The Volokh Conspiracy: "Even if Gov. Perry was wrong to order the vaccinations, there's absolutely no basis for suggesting the vaccine is a threat to children." http://bit.ly/op4qkl

Steven Hayward on Power Line: "Up to now I've thought Michele Bachman was the most impressive performer in the GOP field, going toe-to-toe with the 'big boys' in the field... But her embrace of the wacko idea that the vaccine is dangerous or causes autism, mental retardation, or other risks is simply irresponsible... it has shifted the focus from Perry's use of power to Bachmann's scientific credibility-a lose-lose for everyone." http://bit.ly/roTyBg

Steve Haff at RedState: "In the past, I have written favorably about Michele Bachmann... but now I've heard enough. There were several ways she could have attacked Rick Perry on the Gardasil Issue without resorting to snake oil worthy of a John Edwards pick-up line." http://bit.ly/oQxqTS

As of Thursday night, she was slightly changing her approach, as The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

On the HPV vaccine, Bachmann responded to questions about whether she regretted repeating a supporter's unsubstantiated claim that her daughter suffered mental retardation after being administered the drug. Leading pediatric, bioethical and medical groups have strongly refuted the notion, and Bachmann's campaign has since been forced to address criticism that the candidate was guilty of overreaching.

On Thursday, Bachmann maintained she was making no claims regarding the drug this week, and that she was merely trying to underscore "an abuse of power" by Texas Gov. Rick Perry in mandating the vaccine for girls in his state.

"I didn't make any statements that would indicate I'm a doctor, I'm a scientist, or making any conclusions about the drug one way or the other," she said, adding she was merely relating the concerns of a woman who was "very distraught" and who supported her view that Perry's actions were wrong.

Asked specifically if she would apologize for the HPV comments, Bachmann said, "I'm not going to answer that question."

Perry and Vaccines

(Cross-posted from Autism Policy & Politics)

Speaking with the Miami Herald, Rick Perry commented on autism and vaccines:

We caught up with Texas Gov. Rick Perry this morning in Tampa and asked a few questions about immigration, the controversy over the HPV vaccine and the crowd members who cheered at the idea of letting someone die in a coma. He also gave a shout-out to his buddy, Florida Gov. Rick Scott.

Perry's comments on the HPV vaccine came after Michele Bachmann this morning told a radio show that a woman came up to her after the debate and said her child was made retarded by the Gardasil shot. Perry dismissed that as a side-effect of the vaccine.

"You heard the same arguments about giving our children protections from childhood diseases and that autism was part of it. Now we’ve subsequently found out that that was all generated and not true," he said. "I would suggest to you that this issue about Gardasil and making it available was about saving people’s lives. I sat on the side of a bed of a young lady in Texas who died from cervical cancer. It had a powerful impact on me. We gave parents the right to opt out. The Legislature disagreed with the way we did it. I work for the people, not the other way around…. At the end of the day, saving people’s lives and making vaccines available that can save lives is the important thing…"

Perry, Bachmann, and Vaccines

In The New York Post, Robert Goldberg of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest writes:

In Monday night’s debate, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum all seemed to be auditioning for the role that Jude Law plays in the film “Contagion” -- Alan Krumwiede, a blogger who tells millions that a vaccine to combat a lethal pathogen is actually dangerous, and claims both the epidemic and vaccine were created by government to enrich drug companies.

Krumwiede’s conspiracy theory proves deadly -- and so will these Republicans’, if anyone listens.

All three candidates slammed Texas Gov. Rick Perry for requiring immunization of 12-year-old girls against the human papilloma virus, a leading cause of cervical cancer. The attack truly became a blogworthy screed as we heard about how Perry and Merck (the developer of Gardasil, one of the two HPV vaccines) profited from the mandate at the expense of children’s health.

Bachman called Perry’s move “just wrong,” and spoke of “little girls who have a negative reaction to this potentially dangerous drug.” The next day, she went further, telling Fox News’ Greta van Susteren: “There’s a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate. She said her daughter was given that vaccine. She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine... This is the very real concern and people have to draw their own conclusions.”

Don’t be distracted by legitimate, but minor, questions about how states should make public-health decisions: The thrust of this attack is garbage -- and deadly garbage at that. The anti-vaccine psuedo-science behind the charge has been thoroughly discredited.

At Power Line, Steve Hayward says that Bachmann makes some legitimate criticisms of Perry on the vaccine issue.

But her embrace of the wacko idea that the vaccine is dangerous or causes autism, mental retardation, or other risks is simply irresponsible. Is Bachman, Glenn Reynolds quipped, trying to go after the Jenny McCarthy vote? (Glenn also links to Jonathan Adler’s quick take on this, which is the same as mine.)

Bachman passed along with complete credulity the claim of someone who she says came up to her after the debate attributing her child’s mental issues to the vaccine. I’ve heard a few people speculate darkly about whether such a person actually exists, or whether Bachman made it up or is trimming a bit from something she was told another time. You’d think our inquisitive news media would find this person and investigate, or that the person would now step forward (or that other people with similar claims would now step forward). Above all, this is a political mistake as well as a scientific one, as it has shifted the focus from Perry’s use of power to Bachmann’s scientific credibility—a lose-lose for everyone.

Why Rollins Left His Bachmann Job

At Mullings, Rich Galen offers a very informed hypothesis:

The other day Michele Bachmann's campaign "Did a Gingrich" as she lost her manager, the sainted Ed Rollins and his deputy. Ed said it was because, at 68, he's too damned old to go riding around on small planes and buses for 14 hours a day, seven days a week. I have known Rollins for a hundred of his 68 years, and I am willing to bet heavy money that Rep. Bachmann - or Rep. Bachmann's husband - decided they knew more about how to run a Presidential campaign than Ed did and he told them he was perfectly happy to let them prove it.

At The New York Times, Trip Gabriel and Michael D. Shear writes:

But the departures are also part of a pattern of top staff members’ leaving Mrs. Bachmann, often after short periods. She has parted ways with half a dozen chiefs of staff in her Congressional office since 2007.

“She loves when things are going well, and when things aren’t going well, it’s very tough times,” said Ron Carey, a former chief of staff who left in July 2010. “I think what brought this to a head was the lack of momentum coming out of Ames, and knowing Michelle as I have for 10 years, she has probably been beside herself off-camera.”

Mr. Carey endorsed one of Mrs. Bachmann’s rivals in the straw poll, Tim Pawlenty, before he dropped out of the primary race following a disappointing finish.

At The Washington Post, Chris Cillizza writes:

Bachmann’s campaign team, to date, has been remarkably disciplined with few leaks about anything emerging. But, the decision by campaign manager Ed Rollins to take on an advisory role and deputy campaign manager David Polyansky’s decision to leave the team entirely suggests that there is some level of internal dissension about the direction of the campaign. When campaigns start to struggle, the people whose advice is not being listened to tend to take their complaints public and, in so doing, focus the coverage on process — the “why” and “how” questions that derail candidates’ preferred messages.

Religion and the GOP Field

Religion has a high profile during this campaign. Alana Goodman writes at Commentary:

New York Times executive editor Bill Keller​, who never expressed much curiosity about the religion of Democratic presidential candidates, is suddenly burning to find out more about the Republican field’s religious beliefs:

This year’s Republican primary season offers us an important opportunity to confront our scruples about the privacy of faith in public life — and to get over them. We have an unusually large number of candidates, including putative front-runners, who belong to churches that are mysterious or suspect to many Americans. Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman are Mormons, a faith that many conservative Christians have been taught is a “cult” and that many others think is just weird. (Huntsman says he is not “overly religious.”) Rick Perry​, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum are all affiliated with fervid subsets of evangelical Christianity, which has raised concerns about their respect for the separation of church and state, not to mention the separation of fact and fiction.

...

I’m sure Keller would also “care a lot” if Obama was a secret Muslim intent on destroying America and replacing it with a socialist empire/American caliphate. But he wouldn’t write innocently about this unfounded worry in a column. Why? Because there’s no evidence of it. Just like there’s not a shred to suggest that Romney, Perry or Bachmann are Trojan horses for some bizarre Christian theocratic conspiracy.

Lisa Miller writes at The Washington Post:

Here we go again. The Republican primaries are six months away, and already news stories are raising fears on the left about “crazy Christians.”

One piece connects Texas Gov. Rick Perry with a previously unknown Christian group called “The New Apostolic Reformation,” whose main objective is to “infiltrate government.” Another highlights whacko-sounding Christian influences on Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. A third cautions readers to be afraid, very afraid, of “dominionists.”

The stories raise real concerns about the world views of two prospective Republican nominees. But their echo-chamber effect reignites old anxieties among liberals about evangelical Christians. Some on the left seem suspicious that a firm belief in Jesus equals a desire to take over the world. (Some extremist Christians leveled a similar charge against Barack Obama in 2008, that he was the antichrist aiming to take over world governments.)

As Rachel Maddow so sarcastically said of the New Apostolic Reformation on “The Rachel Maddow Show” on Aug. 10 : “Their goal, world domination, blah blah blah.”

This isn’t a defense of the religious beliefs of Bachmann or Perry, whatever they are. It’s a plea, given the acrimonious tone of our political discourse, for a certain amount of dispassionate care in the coverage of religion.

Harsh Judgment on the GOP Field

Jonathan Martin and Ben Smith write at Politico:

It’s a tough time to be a conservative intellectual.

From The Weekly Standard to The Wall Street Journal, on the pages of policy periodicals and opinion sections, the egghead right’s longing for a presidential candidate of ideas — first Mitch Daniels, then Paul Ryan — has been endless, intense and unrequited.

Profoundly dissatisfied with the current field, that dull ache may only grow more acute after Ryan’s decision Monday to take himself out of the running.

The problem, in shorthand: To many conservative elites, Rick Perry is a dope, Michele Bachmann is a joke and Mitt Romney is a fraud.

Perry and Bachmann: A Contrast

Politico reports that Perry and Bachmann both spoke at the Black Hawk County GOP dinner.

But the contrast that may lift Perry, and undermine Bachmann, in their high-stakes battle for Iowa had less to do with what they said than how they said it — and what they did before and after speaking.

Perry arrived early, as did former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. The Texas governor let a media throng grow and dissolve before working his way across the room to sit at table after table, shake hand after hand, pose for photographs and listen politely to a windy Abraham Lincoln impersonator, paying respect to a state that expects candidates, no matter their fame, to be accessible.

But Bachmann campaigned like a celebrity. And the event highlighted the brittle, presidential-style cocoon that has become her campaign’s signature: a routine of late entries, unexplained absences, quick exits, sharp-elbowed handlers with matching lapel pins, and pre-selected questioners.

Bachmann Up, Perry In

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Michele Bachmann captured the famed Iowa Straw Poll in Ames Saturday, reaching a high-profile benchmark in her meteoric rise to a top-tier presidential candidate.

Bachmann made history, as well, becoming the first woman to win the event. She received 4,823 votes out of the almost 17,000 votes cast. The turnout was a significant leap over four years ago but didn't approach the record of more than 23,000 votes cast back in 1999.

The Minnesota congresswoman narrowly outpaced libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, who had 4,671 votes, and whose red t-shirt-wearing supporters flooded the campus of Iowa State University, and packed the arena when Paul spoke. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty finished third with 2,293, a showing that keeps him in the game for next year’s Iowa caucuses, but had to come off as slightly disappointing.

The Ames Debate

Before this weekend's straw poll in Ames, the Republican candidates debated on Fox last night. Some observations:

Mitt Romney showed coolness and gravitas. He deflected some questions, which frustrated reporters but denied ammo to opposition researchers. At one point, though, he lapsed into a small bit of economic demagoguery, referring to trading partners as "opponents."

Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann sniped at each other, leaving neither looking presidential.

Gingrich was fluent and passionate, but history was not his friend. He said that this weekend is the 30th anniversary of President Reagan's signing of the Kemp-Roth tax bill. Alas, how many voters know what Kemp-Roth was? In response to a question about divided government, he cited his experience in dealing with President Clinton -- but that experience was generally not a happy one.

Jon Huntsman still has work to do. (One small but important thing: he kept putting his head down, not a gesture of strength. Jaw out, governor!) Rich Galen writes:

Huntsman - PRE: Got off to a shaky start and hasn't altered the trajectory of his campaign since. This is the first "big" event since his announcement and he has to show potential donors and supporters he is up to this. His laid-back style might work, but being Perry Como on a stage with the Rolling Stones will present difficulties for him to show his stuff.

POST: Answered the questions easily, but without passion. Move over, Mr. Como.

As for gay issues, The Advocate reports:

Jon Huntsman stood by his support for civil unions and Rick Santorum expressed concern for gay rights in Iran, but for the most part, the Republican presidential debate unfolded as anticipated on Thursday as candidates opposed marriage equality.

"I think this nation can do a better job when it comes to equality,” said Huntsman, a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, in response to Fox News Channel anchor Chris Wallace, who asked whether his more moderate stance puts him in the “wrong party.” Still, he said that he believes in “traditional marriage” and, when pressed on whether his support for civil unions in the states makes him “right” while the other candidates and majority of Republican Iowa caucus goers polled are “wrong,” the candidate, who is not competing in the straw poll or the Iowa caucus next year, said, “They are not wrong.

...

In perhaps the most surprising twist of the debate related to LGBT rights, Santorum, who pledged to fight against marriage equality at home, criticized Iran during the foreign policy portion because it “tramples the rights of gays.”