As our US editor Toby Harnden reports, Michele Bachmann has declared her candidacy for the presidency of the United States. Comedians will be overjoyed. Mrs Bachmann lends herself to satire – the twinset and pearls, the cheerful fanaticism, those unblinking eyes that seem to rage with holy fire. When she gave the Tea Party response to the State of the Union address back in January, she was filmed at an angle that had her staring off into the distance, as if she were channeling the angry ghost of Barry Goldwater. Her copybook is blotted with errors: calling liberals “un-American”, defending the reputation of carbon dioxide, launching a blood feud against Obamacare. Mrs Bachmann’s rhetoric can be crude. This is the best of the worst: “During the last 100 days we have seen a [spending] orgy. It would make any local smorgasbord embarrassed … The government spent its wad by April 26.”
History and electoral logic suggest that Bachmann should emerge as the main rival to Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination
Mrs Bachmann will ride out these scandals because her candidacy has an electoral logic that gives it powerful momentum. Historically, Republican primaries almost always come down to the establishment candidate vs the outsider conservative. Think Ford vs Reagan (1976), Bush vs Robertson (1988), Bush vs Buchanan (1992), Dole vs Buchanan (1996), McCain vs Huckabee (2008). The identity of the establishment candidate is determined early; the big beast wanders the country gobbling up money and endorsements long before voting starts. The interesting battle for the title of conservative outsider comes much later, in the first-in-the-nation-caucus in Iowa. And Iowa is hot for Bachmann.
Some commentators have been dismissing the Hawkeye State because the local GOP is dominated by religious conservatives. The caucus system favours energising small numbers of activists over wooing large numbers of woolly moderates. All of this is bad for Romney, who was beaten in Iowa in 2008 by a preacher man called Huckabee. It is rumoured that this time round Romney might stay out of the caucus altogether. If he does, he’s a fool. Such a move would give another moderate like Jon Huntsman the chance to poll well, attract media attention and establish himself as a credible alternative to Romney. Presuming Romney stays on in Iowa and Bachmann either beats him or comes close, then she’ll be propelled forward as the conservative candidate of choice headed into New Hampshire and South Carolina. Ergo, Iowa has to be taken seriously and how Iowa plays will probably define the rest of the contest because it will assign roles in the historical binary of Right vs Left. The good news for Mrs Bachmann: right now she’s just one point behind Romney in Iowa polls.
For the next few weeks, Mrs Bachmann would be wise to ignore Romney. Instead, she should rain the wrath of God down on Barack Obama and establish herself as the loudest and toughest of the conservative candidates. Throwing red meat to the lions will keep her media profile and her donations up. Meanwhile, let her glide under the radar of liberal contempt. In their treatment of Bachmann and their dismissal of Iowa, too many Republican insiders and media commentators are projecting their own snobberies onto the race. Bachmann’s tone matches the anger of conservative voters in this election cycle better than Romney’s technocratic optimism. The unemployment rate is now 9.1 per cent. Some $23.7 trillion dollars has been distributed to Wall Street while one quarter of America’s children lives below the poverty line. New York has just legalised gay marriage. There is a sense of economic and moral panic in the living rooms of Middle America. Michele Bachmann may sound shrill, but she understands that.