A Rasmussen poll by telephone reports public opinion on three Minnesota legislators: Senators Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, and one Minnesota member of Congress: Michele Bachmann.
There are many other members in the Minnesota Congressional delegation (Ellison, Peterson, Oberstar, etc.) but Bachmann is the only one who rates analysis in this Rasmussen poll. Why is that? Well, Rasmussen doesn't say but I suppose the reason that she gets her temperature taken and the others get ignored is: she's the only one of the Minnesota delegation with a national following. (Quite a national following, some Kossacks reading these updates seem to think that Bachmann's unimportant because she's a liar and a loon. Not so; very often loons with national followings are quite important--check your history books.)
Before you read the numbers in the poll, please bear in mind what was being surveyed. Rasmussen conducted a telephone survey of "Minnesota voters." I read that as "not just the voters in Bachmann's district, but voters from all over Minnesota."
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Fifty-one percent (51%) say they at least somewhat approve of the work Bachmann is doing, while 45% disapprove. But 33% strongly disapprove of Bachmann’s job performance, while 28% strongly approve.
Got that? These are the poll numbers that an outright conspiracy theory lunatic gets. I bet that makes your little ears go flappity-flap-flap. How many times have you seen her lie, outright, on national television? How many hateful statements have you read, from her. Her political rise as a demagogue is based on a series of macaca moments that would have ended other politician's careers a long time ago.
Yet fifty one per cent of Minnesotans "somewhat approve" of Bachmann's performance!
How can this be? Minnesota is a well-educated state, with a strong liberal and communitarian tradition. How can so many Minnesota voters see her on television, lying to them, making the most heinous and unsubstantiated charges, achieving nothing for the state or the country or the people of her district in terms of lawmaking--and conclude she's doing a good job?
Here's how. Those people, the ones who support her all around the state: they think she's doing this for Jesus Christ, in His name. It's the theocrat/religious right angle which the traditional media traditionally leaves out of their reporting on her. (See the next item.) Michele started out getting puffed on evangelical broadcasting, so evangelical voters were among her first political constituencies and she soon had the backing of national networks of evangelicals as well. Michele's crack-brained version of conservatism is largely the same as the one that goes out over evangelical public affairs programming, every day.
Once the evangelical conservatives are in the bag, you become a strong contender for secular conservative talk radio backing (because you have that evangelical base in the bag, you become a credible contender for the secular conservative base, too.) Michele quickly got that support in Minnesota via talk radio appearances and puffing from our local Limbaugh knockoffs.
So that's how you explain those positive numbers in Minnesota for a politician that everyone in Washington, DC knows is an extremist nut. Plus: she's telegenic, good face and form for her age, that counts for so, so much more with conservatives than character, achievement, principles, morality or even sanity...
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/...
Next:
Look at CNN's print profile of Bachmann--a brief survey of her start in politics as a Carter campaign volunteer in the 70s, all the way up to present. This is an example of the bullshit traditional media reporting that keeps her in. I can tell you without ever having met the author that this is cribbed from newspaper databases. The "colorful anecdotes" from previous profiles are the same, and what's left out is the same.
What's left out? You look over this CNN piece and see where you can find "ties to the national religious right rocketed her into prominence in her home state." Look in this CNN piece and see if you can find "her homophobic rallies at the state capitol were attended by thousands. This led to passing over senior state Republicans to grant Bachmann a right to make a Congressional bid." Look for where it says "her record of legislative achievement is staggeringly small--virtually non-existent--given the fact that she has been in elected office for nine years and has national fame." Look for some original reporting, while you're at it.
Isn't it amazing that they actually pay people who don't know what's going on, to cut-and-paste stuff, and then pass that off as "reporting?" How do you get a job like that, where you can turn in that kind of performance and still call yourself a reporter or editor?
http://www.cnn.com/...
Next:
Yeah, yeah, I know--Carrie Prejean mentioned that Bachmann was one of her heroes just before she went into that snit on the Larry King show the other night. But I'm not linking to that here, because I'm a rebel. Anyway I've already watched it three times today, and let's face it--so have you.