Okay, okay, Michele Bachmann won the straw poll in Iowa. My heart lurched when I first heard, but by my calculation, that means she won only 4,930 votes. In Iowa. In a Republicans-only poll. Only 16,892 people voted, and the campaigns paid the $30 per person it cost to cast a vote and threw in lunch.
But I'm still thrown that anyone, ANYONE, would vote for this woman. I'm surprised--and alarmed--that the New Yorker has a lengthy profile of her in the latest edition. A wry but diligent reporter followed her around and wrote down what she said and provided some background. This woman thinks global warming is a hoax, that homosexuals can be converted, that intelligent design should be taught in schools.
She's confused John Wayne with John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer. She helped a professor write a book that contended that the US was founded as a Christian theocracy and should become one again. Medicare and Social Security should be phased out, and people should be "weaned off" these programs. She graduated from Oral Roberts University law school, where the two goals of the school are "to equip our students with the ability to bring God's healing power to reconciile individuals and to restore community wholeness," and "to restore law to its historic roots in the Bible."
She is fringe, that's my point. Maybe not among Iowa Republicans, but among the overall, thank-God plurality of people of the country. It means nothing that she's declared her candidacy for President. I hope it means nothing, anyway.
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