Free Republic

Bachmann is making the case that opposing vaccinations required by the state is fundamentally a conservative issue, which is news to many conservatives given that mandatory vaccinations have been around as long as they have, and, to my knowledge, we haven’t made it a big part of the Republican platform to oppose them. But if you listened to Bachmann last night, it’s clear that she believes this is the type of issue on which a presidential candidate must stand, must do the right thing, and cannot waver in putting this forth as a conservative principle lest we risk infecting millions...

Phil Tetlock and Barbara Mellers were in a race against time to save their 15-year-old daughter, Jenny. As I reported last summer, Jenny developed a degenerative muscle disease nearly two years ago, soon after being vaccinated against the cervical-cancer-causing HPV. She became nearly completely paralyzed, though her mind was perfectly intact and she could still enjoy her pet parakeet, Hannah Montana, and Twilight. I've been E-mailing Phil regularly over the past year, and up until our last E-mail, one week ago, he had been holding out hope that they would be able to find a cure for his daughter—or to...

Palin even went as far as to lend her voice to the charge leveled by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) during the debate against Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R): That he allowed a law to go though requiring HPV vaccinations for adolescent girls because of a $5,000 campaign donation and his relationship with his former chief of staff, who went on to lobby for a pharmaceutical company. "I knew there was something to it," Palin said of learning while she was Alaska's governor that her Texas counterpart had given the go-ahead to the vaccine. "Now we're finding that now, yea, something...

Earlier today, I noted that Michele Bachmann finally scored points on Rick Perry by hitting him on his ties to Merck and linking that to the Gardasil mandate Perry imposed through executive order in Texas. This is a fair point on Perry’s record, even given his apology for pursuing the mandate through EO instead of through the legislature, and it’s not surprising that Bachmann was the candidate to first take advantage of the opening. (Mitt Romney passed a mandate on health insurance for all citizens of Massachusetts, which pretty much puts this issue out of reach for him.) However, Bachmann...

Byron York telegraphs the lines of attack Michele Bachmann is planning on using at tomorrow night's Florida debate to chip away at the support Rick Perry has taken from her: "Bernie Madoff deals with Ponzi schemes, not the grandparents of America," says a Bachmann adviser. "Clearly she feels differently about the value of Social Security than Gov. Perry does. She believes Social Security needs to be saved, that it's an important safety net for Americans who have paid into it all their lives." York goes on the say Bachmann's camp was unhappy with how few questions she got at last...

Rick Perry's campaign just responded to the attack ad that a pro-Michele Bachmann super PAC unveiled last night, which it is airing in South Carolina, and which hits him on his spending record as Texas governor: “Gov. Perry is a proven fiscal conservative, having cut taxes, signed six balanced budgets, and led Texas to become America’s top job-creating state,” said Ray Sullivan, RickPerry.org’s communications director. “Congresswoman Bachmann’s front-group ad is patently and provably false. Unlike Washington, the Texas budget is balanced, does not run deficits and limits spending, even as Texas added jobs and population in big numbers.”

Peter Waldron, a staffer involved in Michele Bachmann’s faith outreach, has compared Texas Governor Rick Perry to Old Testament King Saul and Bachmann to King David. On his Facebook page the day after Bachmann’s straw poll victory in Iowa on Saturday, Waldron wrote, "From afar and in prayer I see a Saul and David scenario between Perry and Bachmann. One looks everything like a king while the other is anointed." Waldron later told his followers that Bachmann "fights with the anointing of God upon her." The visibility of veteran GOP political organizer Waldron has risen a good bit since The...

EUREKA, Ill. -- Sarah Palin told NBC News that Rep. Michele Bachmann winning the straw poll will not affect her decision to run or not, calling her win "not much of a surprise." "It is not much of a surprise," Palin told NBC News. "I think, at this point, it is more of a test of organization. ... The prediction was that it would either be Ron Paul or Michele Bachmann, because they spent a lot of time and energy to make sure they had delegates there who would cast those votes

The exact same spot where Pawlenty was heckled by a gay man earlier, Michele Bachmann and her husband get hit with heckling and chants of 'shame on you.' Both incidents took place today at the Iowa State Fair. There is a group of hecklers at this Bachmann speech. (video)

...Of course, Bachmann knows what every Christian woman knows — the theological richness of submission is a counterintuitive scriptural principle that defies a 30-second response ...The concept of submission is a bit more nuanced than our feminist sisters understand. Christian women are under the authority of their husbands. Submission is, as John Piper put it, “the disposition to follow a husband’s authority and an inclination to yield to his leadership.” This means that the man is the spiritual head of the household, that he should take initiative to make the family better, and lead with love. However, the “head of...

A Minnesota congresswoman was the first choice for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination among Plymouth County fairgoers. The Plymouth County GOP conducted an informal poll of visitors to the party's booth at the fair last week, according to county GOP co-chairman Don Kass. Michele Bachmann received 22 percent of the vote from 380 people filling out the postcard-sized fair poll, Kass reported. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was the second place choice with 19 percent support. Ron Paul rounded out the top three with 15 percent of fairgoers' votes.

Another poll, this one from Public Policy Polling, finds Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) leading the pack of GOP presidential contenders. Michele Bachmann’s momentum continues to build and she’s taken first place by the smallest of margins on PPP’s newest national Presidential poll. 21% of Republican primary voters say she’s their top choice to 20% for Mitt Romney, 12% for Rick Perry, 11% for Herman Cain, 9% for Ron Paul, 7% for Newt Gingrich, 5% for Tim Pawlenty, and 3% for Jon Huntsman. Bachmann’s rise has been fueled by her appeal to voters on the far right- and their skepticism about...

Perry and Bachmann on GOP Ticket? By Paul Stanley | Christian Post Reporter July 18,2011 Texas Governor Rick Perry seems to be getting closer to entering the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is already a committed candidate and in all respects, has earned “frontrunner” status. This leads many political analyst and pundits to wonder: Could Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann be the ideal “Dream Team” for Republicans in 2012? Perry successful executive experience, combined with Bachmann’s conservative legislative credentials could make an interesting combination, but could present some challenges at the same time. Kyle Kondik, a political...

Rep. Michele Bachmann’s latest campaign finance report shows she has a strong network of small-dollar donors backing her presidential bid but, for now, she lacks the support of the big-money bundlers. The report, which covers April to June, showed that Mrs. Bachmann collected more than $4.2 million and had $3.6 million in the bank — putting her neck-and-neck with Texas Rep. Ron Paul for second place in the early money chase and in the rearview mirror of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who raised $18 million and has $12.7 million in the bank. With six months until the caucuses and...

Half that amount was raised in a mere 18 days after she formally declared her candidacy, but given her reputation as a fundraising juggernaut, the bottom-line number sure does look anemic next to Romney’s $18 million haul. At Commentary, Jonathan Tobin wonders if she’s ready for prime time: Bachmann’s excuses for this showing will center on the fact that at the start of the quarter she barely had a campaign, let alone the sort of organization that would allow her to rake in the big bucks. Her Internet fundraising operation, key to a grass roots populist candidacy such as hers,...

....some of my colleagues in the world of Catholic media, journalism and the Press have attributed the positions of this Church and Bachmanns past membership to just "being a Protestant." As someone who has worked ecumenically for decades I reject that dismissal. The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod does not represent many Protestants. It is an Anti-Catholic body. ....I have worked with, prayed with and collaborated with MANY Protestant Christians, for over three decades, who would NEVER call the successor of Peter the Antichrist. The colleagues to which I refer go further, they seemingly accept the notion that if Protestant Christians...

Serious question: Now that Romney has all but abandoned the state, why aren’t his supporters shifting to Pawlenty? Core Romney fans will stick with their guy, of course, if for no other reason than to deny votes to a candidate like T-Paw who poses a potential long-term threat. But what about all the Iowans who aren’t devoted Mittheads but simply prefer his more moderate managerial cred to Bachmann’s fire and brimstone? Why not get behind the only other candidate who’s (a) seriously contesting Iowa and (b) got the potential to go all the way? Mystifying.Regardless, clock’s a-tickin’, Tim. A new...

ABC and NBC each attacked “Michele Bachmann’s family business” on Tuesday, and strangely, each presented it as their own idea -- “our hidden-camera investigation” (ABC) and “NBC News investigates the controversy” -- even as they both relied on a gay-left advocacy group’s sting operation.Neither story showed any sign that these liberals would consider talking to anyone claiming to be an "ex-gay," like Janet Boynes, someone the Bachmanns have promoted. Wayne Besen, the head of Truth Wins Out, a group staunchly opposed the concept that anyone can be “cured” or “treated for” homosexuality, has been quite clear about how liberalism is...

Eventually, the 2012 Republican presidential primary race will boil down to just two candidates. One will be the establishment candidate and the other will be the conservative candidate. Either would have a real chance of beating Barack Obama in the general election, but the conservative candidate would have the better chance. As early as it is, the Republican Party's internal "establishment" primary is almost over. Only two candidates are now competing for that nod: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman -- who most recently served as Obama's ambassador to China. In the RealClearPolitics average of...

Mitt Romney did the right thing by rejecting a social conservative group’s repulsive “marriage pledge.” Will he explain his reasoning? As Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum bent over backward to endorse a right wing document pledging allegiance to conservative values, the Romney campaign says that while their candidate supports “traditional marriage,” he finds some of the pledge’s “references and provisions [to be] undignified and inappropriate for a presidential campaign.” The pledge, put out last week by right wing activist Bob Vander Plaats and his group, The Family Leader, reads like a hit list on American freedoms. One of the document’s...