MICHELE ENERGY – AT 8:13 A.M. ET:  She is apparently ready to battle the smear job that the mainstream media will do on her, just as it did on Sarah Palin.  It's clear Michele Bachmann, congresswoman from Minnesota, is moving toward a presidential race.  From The Politico:

Her formal announcement about whether she’ll run for president isn’t expected for a few weeks, but Rep. Michele Bachmann already has her sights set on President Barack Obama.

Asked Monday night why she’d run for president rather than challenging Democrat Al Franken for his Senate seat, the Minnesota Republican’s answer focused where she’s put much of her energy in recent months: “Because we need a person who is going to stand up to Obamacare,” she said, according to The Washington Post.

“You’ve got to be willing to take on our party, the other party and then explain it to the people,” she told Republicans in New Hampshire. “I know I can make the case to the American people and win them over to our side.”

“Obama has to go and has to be replaced, but not just by anyone,” Bachmann said. “We need someone who is committed to taking that thing out,” she continued, referring to Obama’s health care law, “because it is the crown jewel of socialism, and if it’s allowed to stand we will never get our country back.”

Bachmann said last week that she plans to announce whether she’ll run for the Republican presidential nomination in her childhood hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, in June.

COMMENT:  Sounds like a candidate.  But would she be a good one? 

There are positives and negatives.  On the negative side, she's only a junior congresswoman.  She tends to be rigidly ideological, identifying almost exclusively with the Tea Party movement.  She wins her elections, but by smaller margins than would be expected in her district.  She is not a national figure.  She has a history of making kooky comments that inevitably will be dug up by the same media that sent reporters to Alaska to go through Sarah's trash cans.

On the positive side, she comes prepared.  She does her homework.  She can handle a tough interview, once she puts ideology aside.  She was a respected tax lawyer.  She has the ability to modulate her voice and sound presidential, a serious problem for Sarah.  She has a warm personal story, given her caring for foster children.  She is personally attractive. 

I think it's a tough climb, but I'd like to see her get in.  Even liberal Dan Rather said last week that Bachmann should be taken seriously and could go all the way. 

May 31, 2011