Barry's rightful heir?

Eric Dondero:

An interesting forum in the UK Guardian on Michele Bachmann announcing for president. The hard-left Guardian asks its readers:

As Tea Party favourite Michele Bachmann formally announces her campaign for the Republican party presidential nomination for 2012, she is running Mitt Romney a close second in polls. Do you think she can win it?

The consensus seems to be that she can win the nomination, but it would spell doom for the GOP in the general election.

One respondent - Westmorlandia - gives some begrudging respect to his rightwing rivals.

I want Bachmann to win almost entirely so I can see how similar the campaign ends up to the 1964 campaign - I studied Goldwater for my degree, and the ultra-libertarian wing of the US right were a weird but fascinating phenomenon to cover. The difference now is that Reagan's fusion of the libertarian right (Reagan's roots) with the evangelical right is still strong, which seems to put the US right in a better position than it had in the 60's.

But the interesting similarity is the strength of feeling for a fairly extreme viewpoint, and the illusion (I still think) of majority caused by that strength of feeling

Photo credit - (Bachmann) USAToday