Liberal in the Land of Conservative

Despite impressive fund raising numbers in the first quarter of this year, Michele Bachmann appears on the Roll Call list of potentially vulnerable incumbents.

You have to wonder who these "political experts" are and where they get the incite to claim that Bachmann is vulnerable. As someone who has watched this representative relatively closely over the past couple years, I wouldn't exactly refer to her as vulnerable. Granted, she won her most recent election with only 46% of the vote but she also won with 12,000 more votes than her nearest competitor.

She says some outrageous things but what most of us don't realize is that Bachmann is speaking to a certain crowd within the district who find her comments completely plausible. The fact is that this crowd may not represent a majority in the district yet it does represent a large enough plurality that will keep Bachmann in Congress until she is either redistricted or a powerful enough coalition of Independence and DFL activists join to defeat her. While that coalition was attempted during 2008, it failed for a variety of reasons. Until this coalition can effectively join forces, Bachmann will remain the controversial Congresswoman from the 6th Congressional District.