For The Party

Like me, Craig Westover doesn't live in the Sixth CD.

Like me, he wrote in favor of Phil Krinkie in the CD6 GOP nomination chase.

And like me, he supports Bachmann - even as he disagrees with some of her stances:

Party loyalty means trying to make one’s party better; not the kind of blind allegiance the commenter obviously has to all things non-Bachmann. As I said in my column endorsing Krinkie, Michele holds solid conservative ideas on issues that count. Sure she has some “dumb” positions, but if she had all the "correct" answers, she’d be hobby columnist instead of a politician.

Picking a political candidate is not based on 40 key points of compatibility. To borrow a thought from Virginia Postrel, former editor of Reason Magazine, I’m voting for a candidate, not a mother. I’m not required to stand for everything Michele Bachmann stands for; when I disagree with her, I’ll say so. But given the options being suggested by the DFL, at this point in time, Bachmann’s the best choice.

I don't share Bachmann's zeal about gay marriage (I grudgingly support civil unions); I detest abortion, but regard it as a state issue; I acknowledge her fiscal conservatism, but want her to make it more a part of the nuts 'n bolts of her candidacy.

And while I (or someone like me, since I live in the benighted CD4) disagree with Bachmann on those and other issues, the fact is that that mini-Mitch is much more likely to be able to get a point across to Bachmann than to any of the DFL's likely nominees.

Westoveradds:

At least her supporters are smart enough to engage people that disagree with her, rather than giving them a swift kick to their respective groins.

For the past month, people who are fair-to-bearish on Bachmann have noted that the Senator's opponents are going to come out of the woodwork; Bachmann's personality, beliefs and (selected parts of her) record will become the focus of the campaign.

They figured, I think, that this was a bad thing.

I'm not at all sure of that. First of all, her opponents have tried this sort of smearing since her Maple River Education days. It's never worked. And her "highest-profile" detractors to day - the "Dump Bachmann" blog - bring a snide, overheated puerility to the issue that's unlikely to fly with voters older than fifth grade who don't share the authors' monomania about gay marriage. Eva Young is capable of some responsible reporting; unfortunately for her, she intersperses buries it with sensationalistic hallucinations (the silly "spying in the bushes" claims from last spring) and "When did you stop beating your wife"-type trifles. Calling it "better" than the efforts of her puerile, scatology-crazed co-"writers" is praise by faint damnation.

I've said it for a year now - knowing what we know now, Bachmann's most-fevered opponents will be a benefit, not a hindrance.

Posted by Mitch at May 9, 2006 06:03 AM | TrackBack