History has caught up to Michele Bachmann. And it seems determined to make her a comical footnote in the 2012 presidential nomination fight.
We’re about as far away from Bachmann’s surprising win at the Ames, Iowa straw poll over the summer as we can possibly be. And, although anything can happen and Bachmann could come back and surprise us all, the way her campaign has run in the homestretch leading up to Iowa is among the more spectacular collapses in recent memory.
On Wednesday, Bachmann took time off the campaign trail to accuse Ron Paul of bribing her Iowa chair into switching teams. State Sen. Kent Sorenson (R) publicly flipped to the Ron Paul campaign in a surprise announcement at a Paul event Wednesday night.
Bachmann immediately accused her former chair of being bought. From the Des Moines Register:
“Kent Sorenson personally told me he was offered a large sum of money to go to work for the Paul campaign. Kent campaigned with us earlier this afternoon and went immediately afterward to a Ron Paul event and announced he is changing teams. Kent said to me yesterday that ‘everyone sells out in Iowa, why shouldn’t I,’ then he told me he would stay with our campaign. The Ron Paul campaign has to answer for its actions.”
Sorenson denied the charges, and the Register notes Bachmann “took no questions” about her claims when she made them. On an Iowa radio show Thursday morning, Bachmann did take questions about Sorenson but basically reiterated her previous claim.
“The Ron Paul campaign had contacted one of the people on our campaign, offered them money to go to their campaign,” she said. “He went, pure and simple.”
Lost in the back and forth is the news, of course, that Bachmann lost her Iowa campaign chair just days before the caucuses. And that follows news that a pro-Bachmann Super PAC switched allegiances to Mitt Romney the other day.
And that comes after the story of a leader of the base Bachmann has courted so closely — the Iowa evangelical vote — asking her to step aside.
And that’s just Iowa. In South Carolina, Bachmann’s campaign recently asked for and then touted the endorsement of a progressive Democratic leader who only wants Bachmann to be the nominee because it would guarantee a second term for President Obama.
An embarrassment, but just one of many Bachmann has faced lately. It all likely adds up to a strange if not all together unexpected end to Bachmann’s unlikely campaign for the White House.
Evan McMorris-Santoro
Evan McMorris-Santoro has covered politics for TPM since 2009. Before that, he was a reporter at National Journal’s Hotline covering election 2008. He started his career covering local politics at newspapers in TN and his native NC.
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