Are we Seeing the Death Rattle of Bachmann's Campaign?

The Iowa caucuses are almost upon us and the signs hopefully are show the death rattle of Michele Bachmann's campaign. She's always been in way over her head and but for her lunacy and overarching ego, one has wonder what ever possessed her to fantasize that she was even remotely qualified to run for the presidency. It will give me great pleasure to see her campaign crash and burn. It has also been useful that the quackery of the "Christian counseling center" that she and husband "Marcia" operate has been exposed. One could argue that she's a poster girl for what is wrong with today's Republican Party and the ignorance of the Christianists. The Daily Beast has a piece that looks at what will with luck be the end of Bachmann's campaign. Here are some highlights:

FORT DODGE, Iowa—In one of the more memorable scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur and the Black Knight attack each other with swords. The fight apparently comes to a swift conclusion when Arthur lops off one of the knight’s arms. “’Tis but a scratch,” the knight insists as blood spurts like a geyser. So Arthur lops off the other arm. “Come on, then!” the knight taunts as he commences kicking. “Look, you stupid bastard,” Arthur protests, “you’ve got no arms left!” The knight scoffs: “Yes I have! It’s just a flesh wound.” So Arthur lops off both of the knight’s legs. “All right,” the limbless torso concedes, “we’ll call it a draw.”

So it was on Friday afternoon as wounded Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann—her Iowa juggernaut losing limbs of its own, notably her political director and state chairman (a treacherous defector to Ron Paul)—parked her campaign bus beside a coffeehouse here and glad-handed voters like a champion.

As she happily worked the room, the 55-year-old Bachmann looked wonderful— . . . . only 4 1/2 months ago won the celebrated Ames Straw Poll and duly claimed front-runner status — is practically out of money and running dead last, in single digits, in the latest surveys of likely caucusgoers.

As she bought coffee to go for the remaining aides who followed her around the room with a small media entourage in tow, Bachmann sounded, as usual, like a believer. . . . . Never mind that that media-political complex has decided that the noise emanating from her once-promising crusade is a death rattle.

Her campaign manager, Washington political consultant Keith Nahigian, later claimed that the Bachmann effort was unaffected by the abrupt defection to the Paul campaign of Iowa State Rep. Kent Sorenson, Bachmann’s erstwhile Iowa chairman; “he was just a figurehead,” Nahigian scoffed. Ditto the firing of political director Wes Enos—“Zero impact,” Nahigian insisted.

[H]er supporters Dan Hansen and Mark Miller were worried. “She’s in a tough spot,” said the 49-year-old Miller. “You have to do what you feel is right,” he said of the recent unpleasantness. “Hopefully, it hasn’t been devastating to Bachmann...I like her pluck.”

Hansen, 55, who supported 2008 Iowa caucus winner Mike Huckabee, said he was with Bachmann this time because of “her value system, her honesty, integrity, her Midwest upbringing, her faith, her inward strength, and all those things. You can tell she loves people. She’s not in it just for the power.”

Her value system? You mean peddling "ex-gay" lies and sucking up medicaid and medicare payments and farm subsidies. Her pluck? I'd describe it as utter insanity. Bachmann cannot leave the political scene fast enough for my tastes.