Posted on 05/28/2011 12:18:23 PM PDT by ejdrapes
Michele Bachmann vs. Sarah Palin: Something's got to give Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are nominally allies, two maverick conservative women who are among the GOP's brightest stars. Telegenic pols with devoted followings, both appeal to the tea party faithful and would make strong runs at evangelical Christians and social conservatives in Iowa. They're both favorite faces of Fox News, capable of raising huge amounts of money online. But despite - or perhaps because of - what they have in common, there are signs of tension between the camps. And the iron-clad laws of politics suggest there isn't enough room for the two powerful personalities to occupy the same political space in 2012. "We've never had really two dynamic women run for president in the Republican caucuses," said Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad before a Polk County GOP dinner Thursday in Des Moines that Bachmann had planned to attend. "I think it would be really interesting." Already, their interests are coming into conflict as Palin makes moves designed to reclaim some of the media appeal she's ceded to Bachmann this spring. The timing of Palin's announcement Thursday of a weekend East Coast bus tour overshadowed what appeared to be Bachmann's final steps toward a presidential bid, a "moneybomb" raising $250,000 in a day and a planned speech in Iowa. At the last minute, though, Bachmann's Thursday speech morphed into a telephone conference promising a June announcement. (Plans were changed, not for Palin but for a vote on the Patriot Act, her staff said.) Bachmann and her staff say they're ignoring Palin's steps, and when asked about Palin during her by-phone news conference with reporters who flew to Iowa for the speech Thursday, Bachmann lauded the Alaskan. But in the next breath she ticked off her resume, seeming to distinguish her own background from Palin's credentials. "Our decision is unique, and we are independent of what any other candidates decide - no matter which candidate gets in or which candidate gets out," she said, adding, "I want to make it very clear: I consider Governor Palin a friend, and I have great respect for Governor Palin. But, again, I don't believe that any two candidates are interchangeable. I believe each one of us brings our own unique skill set into this race. "I'm looking forward to letting people know who I am - the fact that I'm a former United States federal tax litigation attorney, the fact that my husband and I are successful business owners, we started and created jobs, I have a background in education reform and in activism, and I'm very proud of the work that I did in the Minnesota state Senate as well as in the United States Congress," Bachmann said. Publicly, Palin, Bachmann and their top staffers have nothing but praise for one another. Palin campaigned for Bachmann last spring in Minnesota, where Palin said the women were "buddies" and Bachmann called Palin "so much one of us." But each camp views the other with a level of suspicion, with some of Palin's supporters seeing Bachmann as a B-list version of their icon and some in Bachmann's camp regarding Palin as a short-timer without Bachmann's record or tenure. Palin "doesn't seem like a credible candidate," said Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson, who reportedly will serve as Bachmann's political director in the state. He said he thought Bachmann would beat Palin there head-to-head if need be. "She has not made any inroads at all to people in Iowa," Sorenson said. Bachmann strategist Guy Short told Politico on Thursday: "I haven't put any thought into what Mrs. Palin's doing." Bachmann's flood of fundraising email this week, meanwhile, was met with irritation by the online supporters who make up Palin's semi-official political operation. "Way to win (people) over Michele. Bug the crap out of them at work," wrote Stacy Drake, a blogger at Conservatives4Palin, hub of Palin's online support. "I've unsubscribed to your email list TWICE," tweeted the founder of Palin Promotions, a grassroots support group, Martha Cano, adding, "#Notinterested." Prominent Republicans speculated Thursday that Palin's bus tour timing is not unconnected to the Minnesota congresswoman's efforts. "Every time Bachmann gets some press, Palin will get herself out there a little more," said one well-placed observer. "There's a little jockeying going on." Craig Robinson, an Iowa operative who runs TheIowaRepublican.com, said a race that features both women "would create a battle royal for the straw poll. Whoever comes out on top from (the crucial Ames Straw Poll in August) would have an advantage. They're too similar. They attract the same people - social conservatives and tea party activists." A Palin entry "would shift the balance" of the overall GOP presidential race, said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, one of Bachmann's closest allies in Congress. But he said she'd become one of a string of hopefuls playing for the same conservative vote, along with Bachmann, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum. Because of her absence, Palin already has started to fade in Iowa, the make-or-break early state for social conservatives. "If (Palin) doesn't engage in the straw poll and the debate, then I think most Iowans are going to say, 'I like you and respect you and I like your message, but if you can't come here and dialogue with me, I'm going to look somewhere else,' " Steve Scheffler, who heads the Iowa Christian Alliance, told Politico.
Politico Updated: 05/27/2011 10:54:13 PM CDT
Could be!
Politco is basically the editorial page of NYTimes.
;-\
Exactly. F___ anything PolitiBS has to say. Ever.
Not THAT is a bumper sticker!
But, quite frankly, it's not Michelle's time right now. Sarah's beacon is too bright for Michelle to gain enough traction. Maybe if Sarah decided not to run, Michelle would be a more viable entity.
Just my humble opinion.
ABP Anybody But Palin!
Can’t wait to see the Country Club eating their words. Waiting til 2016 infers that Bobo is unbeatable, which to Fund is likely true.
Pray for America
"Since the nomination is hers for the taking..."
There you go with the coronation talk. You won't even allow for the idea she may stumble or implode.
Successfully or otherwise, I think she needs to run so people can get it out of their systems.
I am pessimistic about the GOP's chances to beat Obama regardless of the nominee. Obama's failures will be measured by a different standard than W or Carter or any prior president. He'll be reelected by white guilt affirmative action. If an opponent cannot get Obama judged on his record, rather than his race, he'll be back to terrorize the nation for four more years.
Apparently there’s a special 16th-finals division in the GOP primaries. We can have all the men we want competing for the nomination, but only one woman allowed.
There’s no doubt about it - especially since they are not interchangeable. Of course, too the main stream media everyone on this side looks the same.
You hit the nail on the head...if the Dems crossover to vote FOR Palin in the GOP primary in New Hampshire; we will know that they TRULY believe that she is the worst candidate. However; if they crossover and vote for someone else; that will be a flaming red flag that the Dems and the left are scared sh*tless of her.
We'll see.
What executive experience does Bachman have?
Precisely. This is to try and foment discord and mutual destruction between these two women, each of whom is superior to anything we have seen in a couple of decades.
I want them all to run. By the time the primaries get around to Texas half the field has been flayed and quartered.
But the media wants a cat fight. They won’t be happy until there are tufts of hair on the floor and blood under the fingernails.
It doesn’t make sense for Bachmann to run when she’s polling around 5% and has been able to raise money that she will need to keep her House seat after district lines are adjusted. If she splits the conservative vote with Palin and Romney wins, her stature with conservatives will diminish. It’s not about two women. It’s about three conservatives splitting the conservative vote and leaving us with another RINO.
I’m shocked Politco would try to cook up a fight between Palin and Bachman. Absolutely shocked.
And how is this different from any other nomination campaign involving two ideologically compatible candidates?
Saw this on C4P and cut and pasted below. It actually makes some sense:
Thought of the day: I love the memo out there about Palin and Bachman appealing to the same people. I will confess that Bachman, in theory, appeals to some of the same social conservatives to whom Palin appeals. BUT, this really misses a big group of people out there to whom Palin appeals: The pro growth, free market populist crowd. Go ask an Eric Bolling or a Larry Kudlow or a James Pethokoukis or the WSJ or IBD editorial pages why they like her, and it has NOTHING to do with Palin’s personal socially conservative convictions. It’s got everything to do with her stands for free markets against the crony capitalists, her strong dollar beliefs, her emphasis on small business and less regulation gamed against small businesses, and her energy policies.
Frankly, I’m in that group. I like Palin’s socially conservative credentials. BUT, what makes her unique is this free market populist approach, because it’s what gives her transcendent political appeal. I keep saying it: If this is how she approaches a campaign, if she lets her social conservatism speak for itself (like she did in Alaska and simply because it does), if she pivots everything back to the economy and just ignores the distracting and distorted BS (leave it to her supporters), then her message will get out, is powerful, and is persuasive.
I’m telling you, this is what they really fear. Think back to when she was nominated and Obama’s internal polls had them in a panic. It wasn’t her social conservatism that caused it. It was her transcendent, free market populist message. For years, Democrats have identified crony capitalism (of one side, of course), and presented more government as the solution. The Republican response for the last two decades has been “well, we’ll do that, just for a little less money”. Sometimes it works, when the opponent is weak or when, in 2000, there was the inevitable Clinton fatigue and search for change. Usually, it doesn’t.
And, this is why Obama’s “people” say “Romney or Pawlenty can give us a run”, because Romney and Pawlenty will give you a healthy dose of “thousand points of light” and “compassionate conservatism”. But, end of the day, with the media on their side and no savaging of Romney or Pawlenty done, his people see those two like I suspect Rove saw Kerry (someone who could give Bush a run but would lose in the end).
Palin, by contrast, makes things unpredictable. On the one hand, if they can distract her and get her to take the bait, then she probably is easier for them to beat than Romney or Pawlenty. On the other hand, if Palin doesn’t take the bait, if she dusts off the Alaska playbook and runs as a free market populist in the name of small businesses, the middle class, and the poor against the crony capitalism of the establishment, then that message could transcend anything they can do (see “death panels” for an example) . . . and, that, my friends, is (a) what makes Palin a hell of a lot more than comparable to Bachman and (b) always has scared the Obama people about Palin.
EDIT: Put another way, they want her to re-run the McCain campaign. IMO, she transcends if she runs the 2006 governor’s race.
I disagree. From everything I’ve ready they’re locking all this stuff up and Palin’s the one who is ‘going rouge’, completely unconventional. I mean she’s not pressing the flesh in early primary states this weekend like the other candidates are. She’s playing by her own rules. Time will tell if it works or not.
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