Best to start with something funny. MPR Polinaut dug this item up at WorldNetDaily (WND)...
...WND launched a program three weeks ago allowing Americans to send individually addressed "pink slips" to every member of Congress for a price of just $29.95. So far, nearly 3.5 million have been ordered, with about half already on their way to the Capitol..."
And then there's an "only $29.95" link right there in the "article," so you can send a pink slip, too:
Send your pink slips to every member of the House and Senate now for just $29.95
And then--because this is an infomercial, goddamit, not journalism--there's an endorsement for this "amazing offer" from a member of Congress! Guess who? (continued)
"The pink slips program is a great way to get the attention of members who have forgotten they will have to answer to the people next year on out-of-control spending and Washington power grabs," said Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., yesterday. "I support it! And I want my constituents to know I hear them loud and clear."
They love her over there at WND, but they still spell her name wrong. Ah, well.
But why aren't our voters so stupid that they will give us $29.95 to put out a pointless bullshit mailing that costs about one one-hundreth of that? I mean, think about it: World Net Daily claims that they have three and a half million people who've already paid $29.95 a piece for this--that means that World Net Daily makes, let's see, $29.95 time three and a half million--Jesus Christ, I can't even do it in my head. They must be shitting money over there at World Net Daily, if so many Americans are stupid enough to shell out for this.
UPDATE: Now hold on, wait a minute... Commenters have pointed out that WND isn't getting $29.95 per pink slip, for 3.5 million pink slips! (That would mean that the pissed off and credulous were giving them a jilliondy-billiondy dollars.) Instead, WND will be getting $29.99 per sucker, which is a much lower figure. But still impressive, if you think about the number of people willing to shell that amount out in return for this meaningless paper.
It's astonishing. The people who will pay that amount, in return for nothing...well, that's why there will alway be a conservative movement in the US, my friends.
http://www.wnd.com/...
Next:
The question I am most often asked by people outside the district is "how could that nut get elected?" And the answer is complex, but one of the keys to Bachmann's continued success is the crap coverage by local political media here in Minnesota.
For example: there's a political blog here that calls itself "SmartPolitics", but I think that they gave themselves that name the way that Wile E. Coyote gave himself the name "Soooper-Genius" just before the freight train hit his shack full of nitro-glycerine filled carrots.
"SmartPolitics" has this reporter who keeps filing these stories about how Bachmann's support is "grassroots" and "regular folks." He did that again today.
Even his headline points out that so many of Bachmann's donors these days are "just regular folks." That headline and previous headlines he's written about Bachmann would look great in a thirty second TV spot for her, so isn't that sweet of SmartPolitics to do that for her?
One commenter noted thata lot of the "regular folks" donors that are sending small contrbutions Bachmann's way are cable TV fans (and also presumbably talk radio fans). In other words, many of those "regular folks" that SmartPolitics reporter Eric Ostermeier refers to are the tea bagger--the people who love the fact that Bachmann is telling them that the President of the United States is a tyrant and Marxist.
Those particular "regular folks" are people who already believed that Obama's a Marxist and a tyrant. Maybe the people who report for SmartPolitics believe that Obama's a Marxist and a tyrant, too. That belief, according to SmartPolitics, would make them "regular folks."
The other "regular folks" that have surfaced as individual donors on Bachmann campaign reports have been supporters of the evangelical conservative political movement. I haven't looked at the reporting that Ostermeier cites, but in previous statements Bachmann reports individual donations from Council for National Policy luminaries like Phyllis Schlafly and Howard Phillips. (Bear in mind that these "regular folks" from out of state were contributing to Bachmann campaigns even before she got to Congress, even before she got her first appearance on cable TV.)
Some of the names on past donor lists are not so recognizable. For example, you have one Bachmann donor who gave as an individual and turned out to be a leader of ASSS (the Association of Separation of School and State, a Georgia based group that wants to end all government funding for public education.)
And of course Bachmann now has small donors who contribute to her campaign at the urging of the Glenn Becks and Bill O'Reilly's of the world.
But all these professional and amateur right wingers from outside Bachmann's district have one thing in common: they're all just "regular folks," according to Smart Politics. According to Smart Politics, nobody's directing them, they're not acting in concert, and the fact that some of 'em are right wing political activists and organizers--doesn't matter. Just a cooincidence, according to Smart Politics, they're just "regular folks" from out of state, who just happen to have a healthy interest in who represents people in an obscure Minnesota congressional district.
Keep up the investigative journalism, Smart Politics! The Bachmann team can't buy publicity like that!
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/...
Action link: Donate to Tarryl Clark, Bachmann's liberal Dem opponent:
https://services.myngp.com/...