Michelle 'McCarthy' Bachmann -- The Hate Monger of Minnesota

Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Republican from Minnesota, is now notorious for an incident on the October 17 edition of Hardball. Bachmann told Chris Matthews she was "concerned" that Obama "may have anti-American views," and linked him to a Who's Who of leftist agitators, from William Ayers to Saul Alinsky to Ward Churchill. "I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America?" Bachmann said.

Bachmann's comments were an extreme example of McCain-Palin campaign's closing theme: "Real America" and the "the pro-American parts of America" against nebulous socialist elites who "pal around with terrorists." The once reliable tactic backfired in dramatic fashion, jeopardizing Bachmann's reelection in what was once one of the country's safest Republican districts. Bachmann is now the poster child of her party's mounting political woes.

In 2005, while serving in the Minnesota state senate, Bachmann crept surreptitiously to the perimeter of a protest against a bill banning same-sex marriage. She ducked behind a bush, and for several minutes, Bachmann and a staffer observed the rally like spies.

While Bachmann's gaffe startled pundits, a review of her political career shows she has a habit of unusual behavior and inflammatory statements. The fact that she has gotten away with it owes to her relative obscurity and her protection from religious conservatives. "Bachmann was an accident waiting to happen," Steve Perry, the editorial director of the left-learning political news website, The Minnesota Independent, told me. "With no expertise in secular matters, she was caught between an enormous desire for attention and a well justified interest in repelling scrutiny."

In 2005, while serving in the Minnesota state senate, Bachmann crept surreptitiously to the perimeter of a protest against a bill banning same-sex marriage. She ducked behind a bush, and for several minutes, Bachmann and a staffer observed the rally like spies. When a demonstrator approached the half-hidden Bachmann with a camera in hand, she scurried away, jumped in an SUV, and bolted from the scene.

Bachmann justified her behavior as an outgrowth of her religious convictions. She explained to a local mega-church audience soon after the incident: "For 34 years, I've been hot! And you want to be hot! Because when you are hot for Jesus Christ, there is nothing that is like that life!"

Michele Bachmann's evangelical convictions emerged after meeting her future husband, Marcus, a born-again activist who worked with her on Jimmy Carter's 1976 presidential campaign. They married after Michele earned her law degree from Oral Roberts University. "I thought to myself, Oooh. I don't even like this guy," Michele reflected before worshippers at a megachurch. "And he thought, 'Oooh, I'm 22. I don't want to get married. I don't think I even like her' And so we obeyed God and we honored Him in our relationship. And pretty soon some romantic things started happening. And then we got married." While his wife's conservative political activities intensified, Marcus stayed behind the scenes, setting homosexuals on the straight path at his "Christian counseling" center. Besides their five sons and daughters, the Bachmanns have raised 23 foster children.

Michele Bachmann entered local politics during the early 1990's through EdWatch, a right-wing group in Minnesota that vowed to remake the country's "entire education system." She founded a publicly funded Christian charter school where creationism was taught in biology classes and, according to the Minneapolis City Pages, students were forbidden from viewing the Disney movie Aladdin because it supposedly contained anti-Christian themes. After spearheading a failed right-wing takeover attempt of the Stillwater, Minnesota, school board, Bachmann won a state senate seat in 2000 with the backing of several churches in her district.