Bachmann: Pelosi Has Me In Her Sights
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann sat down with FrumForum to discuss her fundraising success and the Democrats' plans to target her seat.
On Tuesday, I wrote a piece about how Michele Bachmann raised an impressive $1.7 million in the last quarter. Today in Politico, she responds to my comparison of her fundraising numbers with Sarah Palin’s. Rep. Bachmann points out that much of her fundraising came at an event in April, when Palin went to Minnesota to campaign for her.
Although FrumForum has not been, shall we say, the friendliest of outlets for Rep. Bachmann’s office, she was nice enough to transcend our ideological differences and offer us a few minutes of her time to talk about her fundraising.
Interestingly, Rep. Bachmann doesn't credit her national profile or fundraising to the controversy that sometimes surrounds her public statements. Instead, she points to how highly targeted her race is – by the DCCC, by Speaker Pelosi, and by liberal interest groups like Emily’s List and the environmental lobby – and says that her supporters are simply energized by this adversity.
Below is our conversation in full:
TM: You go on national television a lot – I wonder if you strategize or you think about what you want to say when you appear on television, in order to… maximize your fundraising:
Rep. Bachmann: No, I would say that’s not true – if I get asked to go on, what I’ll be thinking about is the issue, whatever the issue is. I’d say frequently we get the topic ahead of time, certainly not the question… the topic doesn’t even necessarily stay with what we’ve been told by producers.
So no, I’m not going on with fundraising in mind, I’m going on with the issues in mind.
TM: …Do you think that one of the keys to your success is that you sometimes make remarks that could be considered controversial?
Rep. Bachmann: I think the reason why people are interested in this race is because Speaker Pelosi is very interested in my race. She made it very clear… that this is going to be a high-profile target. This is the third time that I’m running for Congress, and the very first time I ran, Speaker Pelosi and the DCCC spent… $9.6 million. That’s a tremendous amount of money to spend, especially in an upper Midwest state. So I was a high-value target back in 2006…
TM: I guess my question was, whether or not you think that when you… make a remark that some people label as controversial - does that usually increase your fundraising?
Rep. Bachmann: I don’t really have any way of knowing that or gauging that. I really do think, though, that what is driving the interest is the fact that Emily’s List, the environmental groups and ACORN – they’re driving the attention, probably more than anything, because they’ve so highly targeted this race.
Because they’ve targeted it, other people that would be my supporters are paying attention to that. And so, they want my voice to continue on the national stage, and so I think they’re weighing in.
That’s the only thing that I can gauge, because very early on, Speaker Pelosi and the DCCC and the Democrats have made my race targeted… I just think, the more they have targeted me, the more that my supporters want to support me and make sure that my voice stays in D.C.
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