Why Michele Bachmann Is No Sarah Palin
Cover of Newsweek featuring Michele Bachmann, August 15, 2011.
(Photo credit:Â Newsweek via The Washington Post)
By Chris Cillizza
The Fix blog
August 9, 2011
Excerpts
The controversy over a photo of Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann that appears on the cover of Newsweek magazine this week has drawn comment from people all over the political world.
Except for one: Bachmann herself.
On the campaign trail in Iowa, she said that she hadn’t seen the photo; her campaign team told NBC that the photo was from a lighting session and was not their preferred picture but have issued no formal statement about the image. …
That (relative) silence affirms a simple but important truth of this campaign: Michele Bachmann is no Sarah Palin.
(Close readers of the Fix know that we have already laid out a laundry list of how the two womens’ political approaches differ.) …
Bachmann’s refusal to engage in an extended back and forth over the Newsweek cover coupled with her approach to stories raising questions about her ability to cope with migraine headaches suggests she is taking a very different tack. …
The broader strategic calculation Bachmann appears to have made is that she needs to expand beyond her political base rather than simply deepen her supporters’ connection to her in order to be something more than a sideshow in the nomination fight. …
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Related reports on this site
Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann.
(Photo credit: Robyn Beck / AFPÂ — Getty Images)
Michele Bachmann vs. Sarah Palin (April 6, 2011)
Bachmann Migraine Hit Piece (July 23, 2011)
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
One Year Ago — August 10, 2010
One year ago today, I provided my weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
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Two Years Ago — August 10, 2009
Dick Cheney Personality Profile
Two years ago today, on August 10, 2009, I released the results of a psychological assessment of former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney, conducted at the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics. The key finding of the study was that Vice President Cheney’s most prominent personality patterns (or traits) are high levels of Conscientiousness and Dominance. The study shed light on the extraordinary degree of power and influence Vice President Cheney exercised in the Bush administration and the former vice president’s apparent reluctance to follow the lead of former President George W. Bush to depart from the political arena upon completing his term of office.
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Three Years Ago — August 10, 2008
Campaign Against Michele Bachmann: Day 27
Three years ago today, on August 10, 2008 — the 27th day of my 2008 campaign against incumbent U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann for the Republican nomination in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District — I featured a St. Cloud Times news report about the first leg of my 100-mile walking tour of the Sixth District from Freeport to St. Joseph, Minn.
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