Minn. Rep. Bachman Flake Supreme

Wackiest Moments“You had an election with a strong trend away from Republicans toward Democrats,” says Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (and Minnesota native). “You had a reasonably attractive, not terribly weak challenger against her, who ended up, because of the notoriety that she achieved, getting fairly well funded. You had her demonstrating her embarrassing nuttiness repeatedly. And she still won.”

Nevertheless, some think Bachmann’s Palin act might be wearing thin. In July, Roll Call reported that the National Republican Congressional Committee had added her to a program meant to boost fundraising for vulnerable incumbents. Physician Maureen Reed, who is battling state Senator Tarryl Clark for the Democratic nomination, recently raised $230,000 in eight weeks, according to Jason Isaacson, her campaign manager. Clark won’t reveal how much she has raised, but says, “We’re going to be competitive. Things are going quite well.”

“The bottom line is that the 6th District isn’t as conservative as [Bachmann] is,” says Isaacson. It’s certainly the most right-wing district in the state—it went for John McCain by almost nine points in 2008—but Isaacson insists that a challenger who is seen as a moderate, rather than a liberal, can “make Michele Bachmann pay for her political craziness.”

Even in 2008, Clark points out, most people in the district voted against Bachmann—but 10 percent of them went for a third-party candidate. (Bachmann won 46 percent, while 44 percent went for Tinklenberg.) Meanwhile, Clark adds, the district has the highest foreclosure rate in the state, something she says Bachmann has done nothing to ameliorate—the congresswoman has voted against every major foreclosure-relief bill and called struggling homeowners “irresponsible