Why Michele Bachmann Was Not a Viable Candidate

Her Defense on Remarks She Said on New Gingrich – She Did Not Write Them

As the Republican race for the Presidential nomination is slowly dying, giving way to the inevitable victory of Mitt Romney, various embers of the race spring to a brief life to illustrate the folly of the many unqualified candidates.  A good example of this is what will be a very short lived controversy about a radio ad for Newt Gingrich in South Carolina.

At issue this time is a radio advertisement in which one-time Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann praises Mr. Gingrich. The ads are running in South Carolina this week and are paid for by a Super PAC backing Mr. Gingrich.

“He made an indelible mark that literally changed the course of the United States,” Mrs. Bachmann says in the ad. “Newt Gingrich, thank you!”

The ad concludes with the narrator saying: “Michele Bachmann was right: Newt helped change history once. He can do it again. Go with Newt, the man who can beat Obama.”

Ms. Bachmann and her lawyers object to this

For all the fuzzy feelings expressed by Mrs. Bachmann in the ad, her lawyer is asking radio stations to pull it off the air.

The problem, as they see it, is that the ad makes it seem that Mrs. Bachmann has endorsed Mr. Gingrich. But she hasn’t.

“Put simply, Congresswoman Bachmann has not endorsed Speaker Gingrich nor any other candidate for the presidency,” wrote Mrs. Bachmann’s lawyer, William McGinley, of the Washington law firm Patton Boggs LLP, in a letter to South Carolina radio stations.

But the problem of course is that the ad and its contents do not say Ms. Bachmann has endorsed Mr. Gingrich, it just replays here remarks and in defense the third party running the ads says this.

Rick Tyler, who helps run the pro-Gingrich group Winning Our Future, which is responsible for the ad, says he has no plans to back down. “That is exactly what she said and exactly the way she said it,” he said in an interview.

and of course the real issue with Ms. Bachmann is that she sees Mr. Romney as the eventual winner and obvious doesn’t want to be seen as backing a losing horse.

For the rest of us the issue is this.

Mrs. Bachmann’s praise of Mr. Gingrich was recorded during the last election cycle, when Mrs. Bachmann introduced the former House speaker at a fund-raising event he headlined for her congressional re-election campaign. Mrs. Bachmann’s lawyers say she didn’t even write the remarks.

Yes, Michele Bachmann showing why she should have ever been considered as a serious candidate, because she goes out and says things she even write, which gives her the rationale to disavow her own statements.  That’s okay Michele, the rest of us don’t believe anything you say anyway. So don’t worry, we’re sure Mitt understands you didn’t know what you were doing or saying.  After all, he was in a bunch of debates with you.