This just in: she raised $4.5 million dollars prior to the end of September. What's amazing is her continued poor-mouthing to donors in her emails. For, by comparison...
No other congressional candidate in Minnesota has raised a comparable sum. In the hotly contested 8th District race, both incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack and his DFL opponent Rick Nolan each raised less than $500,000 in the third quarter.
Action link, below, if you want to contribute to her Dem opponent. No new polls. But I do have this, regarding African-American slavery:
Salon reports that Michele Bachmann signed a pledge written by "Bob Vander Plaats, the leader of the arch-conservative Family Leader, a religious organization that opposes same-sex marriage."
In the pledge, Bachmann joins Vander Plaats in asserting that
...life for African Americans was better during the era of slavery:
“A child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”
This sort of statement is in the news right now because Arkansas State Representative Jon Hubbard is arguing that African-American slavery was "a blessing in disguise." (Hey don't look at me--I don't write this shitt, I just report it, OK?)
Anyway, that's a much better question for Michele Bachmann than the "who's your favorite movie star?" questions she got from the St. Paul Pioneer Press in their interview with her last week. "What's your favorite thing about slavery, Michele?" "Well, parts of it were definitely a downer, but hardly anyone ever talks about the fact that African-American children did better under slavery because they were more likely to be raised in a two parent household. Unless one of the parents was sold. Or both of the parents. Or the child. My source for this, by the way--is a Christian Right group that opposes gay marriage. So it's a Christian view. See?"
It's more than a hundred and forty years after the Civil War. I didn't expect to see American conservative politicians returning to defenses of slavery in 2012. (Rick Santorum signed the same pledge.)
But apparently Bachmann and some of her Republican peers feel this is a winner for them with some of their base (including their Christian base!) I think they're right, so far as their own districts go. They done the math; they wouldn't sign on to statements like these if they thought "pros of slavery" talk would alienate rank-and-file in the Christian Right.
And so here we are, revisiting the issue of "Slavery: A Blessing in Disguise?" in the 2012 election cycle instead of the 1852 election cycle.
But this is reality. And if we are Democrats, liberals, or progressives: we are all compelled to live here.
(CONTINUED)
Next:
Rep. Michele Bachmann has claimed credit in recent campaign ads for helping St. Cloud Regional Airport get back to flying.
...The three local officials who spoke to the Times couldn’t name any way in which Bachmann aided the Arizona air service effort.
There's more; her ad is false. So it turns out that you and I have been unfairly holding ourselves back all these years, because we
haven't been lying on our resumes.
The airport's director say that Bachmann does deserve credit for "writing the U.S. Department of Transportation in support of the $750,000 federal grant the airport received." But that $750,000 for her district is the kind of "porky-porky, raise-the-deficit-spending, the-US-taxpayer-is-taxed-enough-already, private-sector-will-take-care-of it, earmarks-that-I-pledged-against stuff" that Bachmann says she's in government to stop.
Next:
A fire and explosion destroyed a paper mill in Bachmann's district last Memorial Day. In Sartell, Minnesota, a plant worker was killed and firefighters spent a week putting out the subsequent blaze. The company decided that they would not reopen, so 259 Bachmann constituents lost their jobs. The mill was also the community's largest source of tax revenue.
Bachmann's opponent Jim Graves ran an ad featuring plant workers who criticized Bachmann for not meeting with them after the disaster. Bachmann called the ad "a lie."
A spokesman for the paper mill workers responded to Bachmann's charge:
"I stand before you, my workers, the community, to set the record straight," (Lyle Fleck, a former mill employee) said to a crowd gathered at the mill. "Representative Michele Bachmann did not personally reach out to the mill workers in the aftermath of the fire."
Fleck said in the days and weeks after the fire he either heard from or met with Gov. Mark Dayton, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, State Senator Michelle Fischbach, R-Paynesville, and other local and county officials.
Fleck said that Bachmann's claim that the mill worker's story is false is untrue and misses the point.
"It is one thing to meet with the company officials and quite another to meet with the actual workers," he said. "Those whose jobs were at stake. These workers are her constituents. The ones she's supposed to represent."
Bachmann's reponse to "the point": no comment from her campaign. Tangible Bachmann action on behalf of the now unemployed mill workers? Forget that...
ACTION LINK: Act Blue, and fight the crazy and the lies. Contribute to Bachmann's Dem opponent, Jim Graves...
https://secure.actblue.com/...
She raised $4.5 million dollars in a three month period for a congressional campaign:
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/...
Conservatives defending slavery:
http://www.salon.com/...
Bachmann takes credit for airport business she didn't create:
http://www.sctimes.com/...
Workers at burned down factory say she's lying:
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/...