On the eve of the Iowa Caucus -- the first official GOP nominating event of Election Year 2012 -- Michele Bachmann's theme should be "Iowa Stubborn."
Don't recognize the song? It's from the 1957 Broadway smash The Music Man which introduced us to con man Harold Hill, a fella who could talk his way out of anything. Hill convinced the residents of a small town in Iowa to give him money for instruments and uniforms to start a boys' band, knowing full well it was a promise he'd never make good on.
Fifty-five years later Michele Bachmann keeps insisting that she's gained "tremendous momentum" from the last GOP debate and that "people will be very surprised at the results on Tuesday night," the night of the Iowa Caucus. Unlike Harold Hill, Bachmann isn't exactly a con man. She seems to truly believe what she says despite recent polls which show her in last place.
Nonetheless, people seem to like her and she did win the Iowa Straw Poll back in August -- a point she drives home every time a microphone is in front of her.
But Iowa is a tough row to hoe...especially if you're a woman.
New York Times op-ed columnist Gail Collins notes that Iowa is "the only state besides Mississippi to never have elected a woman as governor or a member of Congress." For weeks media outlets have broadcast sound bites of Iowans saying they wouldn't vote for Bachmann because she's a woman and can't win the election.
Bachmann has always ignored the gender issue but in the 11th hour she's decided to play it up in hopes of winning the women's vote. The Associated Press reports that at an event in Mount Ayr, Bachmann stressed, "I'm an Iowa girl. And one thing I remember about Iowa is we are a state of strong women....We need a strong woman to turn this country around, right?"
The pitch may be working for some. Residents Margaret Bickers and Mary Davenport -- who heard Bachmann's speech -- were swayed. According to the AP:
"Women are just more passionate than the men," Bickers told a reporter. "We need a woman who is not afraid to vocalize that passion and effect change."
"It takes a woman to get things done," Davenport chimed in. Both said they were inclined to caucus for Bachmann.
Yet Yvonne Kincaid, a local county GOP chairwoman, thinks gender will hurt her:
"I've noticed that when her name is mentioned sometimes that there's a lot of men that wouldn't vote for a woman," said Kinkade, who counted herself among the undecided after visits by a few candidates this past week. "A lot of them are the head of the households in these farming communities."
To address this concern, Bachmann has been recasting herself as a Yankee Margaret Thatcher, calling herself "America's Iron Lady" and reading a Thatcher biography for insight. She has also been vocal about her whirlwind 10-day visit to all 99 Iowa counties -- a feat she had erroneously stated no other candidate had accomplished, although Rick Santorum has done so at a more leisurely pace as ABC News describes.
If she doesn't pull the rabbit out of the hat and place in the top three tomorrow night, she may not have gender to blame but her own busy schedule. When ABC News interviewed small business owner Michael Limberg following a GOP event back in December, he made it clear what mattered most :
He praised both candidates for coming out, but said he "appreciated the amount of time Rick Santorum was able to spend here," adding that Santorum "wasn't in as much of a rush to get through the evening as Michele was."
"You do want to engage them one on one because you do want to ask those questions that are important to you and I know her schedule is tight as they all are, but I do wish more time were allotted for the discussion after the speech she gave," Limberg said.
The Music Man's "Iowa Stubborn " is sung by a chorus of townspeople who welcome Harold Hill yet reflect on their contrariness regarding outsiders and their own mixed feelings "About the Iowa way to treat you/When we treat you/Which we may not do at all."
How Iowa treats Bachmann may determine whether her campaign lives on or is dealt a fatal blow in the state where she was born. For a hometown girl who briefly tasted front-runner status here just four months ago, the results could be devastating. All the stubbornness in the world won't carry Bachmann to the White House if Iowa sends her packing.
Photo of Michele Bachmann © Win McNamee/Getty Images
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Comments
It is haed to see how winning the Iowa straw poll, which consists of paying the Iowas GOP $30 a vote is an accomplishment worth bragging about or a qualification for consideration for higher office.
So it is for the rest of Bachmann’s list of accomplishments. At a time in which America is trying to recover from the polarizing effects of an unpopular war, Bachmann touts her ability to fight.
At a time when Americans are thankful for the safe return of husbands and sons from an idiotic and unnecessary foreign war, Bachmann is thumping the war drum to fight another, bigger, stronger country.
Bachmann’s ego is so big it blocks her ability to make good judgments.
She is untrustworthy as a political leader.