For a political monster, Michele Bachmann is tiny, legs crossed on a leather couch, protected only by those piercing FOX-blue eyes, a shiny black sweater, and a big, golden congressional brooch. She hypnotizes with details evoking real humanity: She grew up poor in Anoka, a girl scout and a cheerleader, her parents were divorced when she was 14 . . . You’re disarmed as she chews the scenery of her own creation myth: the gigantic brood of foster kids, the ingénue Stillwater soccer mom unseating the 28-year State Senate incumbent with a five-minute speech on freedom, given in sweatshirt and jeans. The 53-year-old “knows exactly who she is and what she stands for,” she says.
Then suddenly her D.C. office is ringing like an alarm clock—she is being buzzed across the street for another series of “no” votes. As she rushes out, the cognitive dissonance of her collective policy and moral values rushes in: How can a fierce proponent of at-risk children be an opponent of government initiatives to protect them and others? How can a disciple of Ayn Rand look at the last two decades and see only failures of government, not capitalism? Even Alan Greenspan apologized. Questions only beget more questions, and eventually you’re in the cave alone, fascinated by, but unable to quite figure out, Michele Bachmann.
After your parents’ divorce, was your dad around?
No, he was not around.
So you had 23 foster kids and five of your own. Why do you love kids so much?
We love kids, number one. But our hearts are broken for at-risk kids. You never know how much you can do until you’re stretched. We didn’t know if we could do it. And it worked out beautifully. By the fourth child you start getting a system. By the time you have your fifth baby, the oldest is old enough to actually start helping and it works pretty well. After five children, honestly, it’s all downhill and you just have one big party.
My dad is in love with you because you spoke about the Second Amendment at his trapshooting banquet.
I don’t get as much time to go and shoot as I would like, but my favorite gun is the AR-15.(1) It’s so accurate. It is a big gun! I’ll do a handgun, but it’s not my favorite. My dad was a big hunter—a big outdoorsman. When I was 12 . . . I had to learn how to carry, how to be safe, how to carry a weapon when you go under barbed wire.
What was your entry point into politics?
I came from a middle-class background, but then when my parents divorced we went below poverty. But the one thing we had was high-quality public school education. I went to Anoka High. It really offered the best of the best. Garrison Keillor graduated from there. And I adore Garrison Keillor.
You’re a Garrison Keillor fan?
He and I are polar opposites politically, but I think he’s a genius. Anyway, our biological kids were going to a little private Lutheran school in Stillwater, but our foster children were [required] by state law to be in public school. I wasn’t anti–public school, but I was nervous about what I saw them bringing home in the backpack.(2)
Health class stuff?
A lot of it had to do with politically correct indoctrination. So I started investigating what in the world is going on with education in Minnesota.
Are you talking about public education’s obsession with multiculturalism?
Your perfect example is from the University of Minnesota’s school of education—their new standard (3) . . . a prescribed level of indoctrination that students [are tested on] in order to matriculate. That’s wrong. The state should not impose a value system in order to receive a teaching certificate. That’s a First Amendment issue.
It’s been one of the most tumultuous decades in history—have you changed?
The voice hasn’t changed. The philosophy hasn’t changed. The commitment hasn’t changed. I have a defined set of core values and beliefs and I’ve been articulating those beliefs for a long time. People appreciate that through thick and thin, I’ve been on the politically incorrect side now for really all nine years I’ve been in politics.
Incorrect how?
In my district people want a strong fiscal conservative. My husband and I believe in getting your house in order financially. There are people here in D.C. who appear to get a thrill out of spending other people’s money. I don’t. I feel like I need to be very prudent because I know who’s going to pay for it: me and my husband, my kids, my neighbors. The Congressional Budget Office—this isn’t just Michele Bachmann now—says that within eight years, we’re looking at bankruptcy in the country. I can’t affect a lot of legislation because I’m in deep minority. My message today is to sound the alarm.
You often refer to blood sacrifice, whether it’s Tennyson or Jefferson. My favorite was, “We have to slit our wrists and become blood brothers for freedom!”
That’s from the cowboy and Indian movies from the 1950s. That's all my brothers and I watched: John Wayne and cowboys and Indians.
Where do you find this bloody, violent language?
I don’t know where you’re going with this blood and sacrifice stuff, but it’s not me! I love Blackstone. I love the language and the idiom of the founding era. If I’m looking at philosophy, I love Emerson, Thoreau. But if I go on vacation, I take books on economics. If there’s a favorite subject of mine, it’s economics and Austrian economics in particular. My all-time favorite author is Ludwig von Mises.(4) I love von Mises! He writes about how man’s actions are based in self-interest. As much as the collectivist says to each according to his ability to each according to his need,(5) that’s not how mankind is wired. They want to make the best possible deal for themselves.
And that’s the optimal state of things?
Take the gentleman who started the Hershey’s candy company. . . . He accumulated a great deal of wealth. Did he consume it all and build a palace made of gold and eat with gold utensils and drink from gold goblets?
Like Willy Wonka?
No, he didn’t! He used that wealth in philanthropic ways.(6) Because there’s only so many cars you can drive, so many homes you can live in, and only so many suits that you can wear. So self-interested human action actually leads to the best possible outcome for the greatest number of people.(7) Because we first satisfy our own needs and wants, but from there there’s a gut instinct to help our fellow man. But we do it out of our wealth. My husband and I, because we had health and we had each other, (8) we had capacity to help other children. We can duplicate that on a macro level so that we help the greatest number of people. That’s how we bless the world. Anytime there’s a tsunami or an earthquake it’s always the United States [helping]. We do that because we have excess.
Do you think being pretty is a barrier to your being taking seriously?
I never felt disadvantaged as a girl. I never became a part of what was considered in the late ’60s to be the feminist movement, because I didn’t feel I needed to be liberated. My parents taught me that I was liberated. That I was just as good as my brothers.
How often do you pray?
Every day. Every day. The apostle Paul says, “pray without ceasing.” I wish I could!
Influential figures in the evangelical community, many of whom take an apocalyptic view of the current era, are some of your biggest backers. How does theirs and your own evangelical faith inform your work in Congress?
When I am here as a member of Congress, my allegiance is to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. (9)
(1) The AR-15 is a semi-automatic assault rifle, basically the civilian version of the M-16. That’s a lot of gun, but maybe not for a congresswoman with an “A” rating from the NRA.
(2) Bachmann mentions the 1998 Minnesota Graduation Standards Law, or “Profile of Learning,” as the demarcation point when school books moved from—her words—“fact-based” to “values-based.”
(3) Bachmann is referring to TERI, the Kubrickian-sounding Teacher Education Redesign Initiative. Its mission statement: “TERI will add focus to our efforts in four areas: preparation for work with special education students, preparation for work with English language learners, development of cultural competence, and preparation for working effectively with families and communities.” Cultural competence is a large gray area—not the congresswoman’s favorite color.
(4) von Mises (1881–1973) was a proponent of classical liberalism and laissez-faire market ideology. Ayn Rand loved him. At 900 pages, his seminal work, Human Action, would be a helluva thing to lug to the beach, though Bachmann said it could be an action movie starring Johnny Depp (2017?).
(5) Bachmann is referencing Karl Marx (1818–1883), what liberals bring to the beach.
(6) Milton Snavely Hershey (1857–1945) founded the company in 1894. Having no heirs, he transferred the majority of his assets and control of the Hershey Candy Company to a trust and foundation. In 2002, Pennsylvania’s Attorney General successfully blocked the trust from selling the chocolate company to Wrigley for $12.5 billion.
(7) Recent evidence notwithstanding; see AIG, et al.
(8) But as Bachmann readily admits, not wealth.
(9) Hours after saying this, Bachmann led a prayer at a “prayercast” sponsored by the Family Research Council PAC. During the online prayer session, she asked forgiveness for the senators and representatives who had voted for health care reform. Her eyes tightly closed, Bachmann called upon God: “Lord, as leaders of this country, I pray as a stand-in for myself and others who may not have looked to you in all your ways. . . . Father, we want to represent you in the way that we should, so Father I ask your forgiveness for that.”
For more about the congresswoman, veteran journalist Brian Lambert explores the Sixth District and Bachmann’s evolution into national GOP icon in February’s Mpls.St.Paul Magazine.
© 2010 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved