THE TELEGRAPH: The Republican Party has found a new pin-up in Michele Bachmann as it prepares for a long electoral battle against Barack Obama and the Democrats.
The mother of five, who calls the president as a socialist, will appear in the 2010 Calendar of Great American Conservative Women, and is becoming a fixture on Right-wing cable news shows for her opposition to the Democrats' high-spending, bail-out agenda.
After just three years representing Minnesota's sixth district in Congress, the rising star is already being touted as a probable candidate to replace the Tim Pawlenty, the Minnesota governor aiming for the party's 2012 presidential nomination.
The former tax lawyer and state senator has rapidly become a love-hate figure, and has been compared to Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and vice-presidential candidate.
Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, recently introduced Mrs Bachmann as "the second most hated Republican woman in the country, second to Governor Palin, which is a good position".
Both women's politics are conservative, home-grown and laced with libertarianism. Both are highly telegenic with a gift for controversy and, according to their detractors, for wildly inaccurate remarks or bizarre, nonsensical comments. Both have had action dolls made in their image.
At a recent forum in Colorado Mrs Bachmann, 53, issued the following call to action against the Democrats' plans to reform health care.
"This cannot pass. What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn't pass," she said.
She has also encouraged opponents of "socialised health care" to "pray to God" for Mr Obama to fail. >>> Alex Spillius in Washington | Thursday, October 15, 2009
