Why? People never really got to know her. Her robotic speeches and false historical statements caused many to shy away from the Minnesota congresswoman. She often came off as oblivious and not human.
However, there is one large factor this Tea Party Patriot never really played upon in this primary season. Unlike Hillary Clinton before her, Michele Bachmann never played the woman/female card. One thing that propelled Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to the top of the ticket a few short years ago was that these two candidates were different than the usual presidential candidate; one was an African American and one was a woman. Both played upon these aspects of gender and skin color.
The Bachmann campaign never embraced the fact that she was a woman, the only woman in the race. Could this have helped her? I think so. After Hillary Clinton bowed out in 2008, and John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, many of Clinton's female followers began supporting the McCain/Palin ticket because of Palin.
Right now women are not "strongly" supporting Obama. Why didn't the Bachmann campaign jump upon this? Was she afraid of stealing Palin's thunder? Palin decided not to run back in...September. Maybe Bachmann was afraid of the criticisms facing women? Hillary Clinton was criticized over and over again for emotional distress and doubts of strength because she was a female. However, Hillary Clinton kept inspiration for millions of people alive by giving hope that she could be the first female president.
Many feminists are liberal. However, there are many conservative women out there who are fully supportive of women in power.
It will be interesting to see what Bachmann's next move is. I have a feeling we will be seeing her A LOT in the near future. Great...
