Personal fidelity to my spouse.
Respect for the marital bonds of others.
Official fidelity to the U.S. Constitution, supporting the elevation of none but faithful constitutionalists as judges or justices.
Vigorous opposition to any redefinition of the Institution of Marriage – faithful monogamy between one man and one woman – through statutory-, bureaucratic-, or court-imposed recognition of intimate unions which are bigamous, polygamous, polyandrous, same-sex, etc.
Recognition of the overwhelming statistical evidence that married people enjoy better health, better sex, longer lives, greater financial stability, and that children raised by a mother and a father together experience better learning, less addiction, less legal trouble, and less extramarital pregnancy.
Support for prompt reform of uneconomic, anti-marriage aspects of welfare policy, tax policy, and marital/divorce law, and extended “second chance” or “cooling-off” periods for those seeking a “quickie divorce.”
Earnest, bona fide legal advocacy for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) at the federal and state levels.
Steadfast embrace of a federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which protects the definition of marriage as
between one man and one woman in all of the United States.
Humane protection of women and the innocent fruit of conjugal intimacy – our next generation of American children –
from human trafficking, sexual slavery, seduction into promiscuity, and all forms of pornography and prostitution,
infanticide, abortion and other types of coercion or stolen innocence.
Support for the enactment of safeguards for all married and unmarried U.S. Military and National Guard personnel,
especially our combat troops, from inappropriate same-gender or opposite-gender sexual harassment, adultery or intrusively intimate commingling among attracteds (restrooms, showers, barracks, tents, etc.); plus prompt termination of military policymakers who would expose American wives and daughters to rape or sexual harassment, torture, enslavement or sexual leveraging by the enemy in forward combat roles.
Rejection of Sharia Islam and all other anti-woman, anti-human rights forms of totalitarian control.
Recognition that robust childbearing and reproduction is beneficial to U.S. demographic, economic, strategic and actuarial
health and security.
Commitment to downsizing government and the enormous burden upon American families of the USA‟s $14.3 trillion
public debt, its $77 trillion in unfunded liabilities, its $1.5 trillion federal deficit, and its $3.5 trillion federal budget.
Fierce defense of the First Amendment‟s rights of Religious Liberty and Freedom of Speech, especially against the
intolerance of any who would undermine law-abiding American citizens and institutions of faith and conscience for their adherence to, and defense of, faithful heterosexual monogamy.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is the first presidential candidate to sign a pledge written by a socially- conservative advocacy group in Iowa that, among other things, endorses the view that homosexuality is a choice rather than a biological trait. . . .
she met her husband-to-be while volunteering on Jimmy Carter's 1976 presidential campaign . . .
"Bachmann is going to surprise a lot of people here," [Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad] said, adding that Mr. Pawlenty seems to have the strongest organization in the state and that former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain has also impressed a lot of Iowans. The governor said that he's heard continuing rumors about Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Rick Perry of Texas possibly entering the race.
Ms. Bachmann is best known for her conservative activism on issues like abortion, but what I want to talk about today is economics. When I ask who she reads on the subject, she responds that she admires the late Milton Friedman as well as Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. "I'm also an Art Laffer fiend—we're very close," she adds. "And [Ludwig] von Mises. I love von Mises," getting excited and rattling off some of his classics like "Human Action" and "Bureaucracy." "When I go on vacation and I lay on the beach, I bring von Mises."
As we rush from her first-floor digs in the Cannon House Office Building to the House floor so she can vote, I ask for her explanation of the 2008 financial meltdown. "There were a lot of bad actors involved, but it started with the Community Reinvestment Act under Jimmy Carter and then the enhanced amendments that Bill Clinton made to force, in effect, banks to make loans to people who lacked creditworthiness. If you want to come down to a bottom line of 'How did we get in the mess?' I think it was a reduction in standards."
She continues: "Nobody wanted to say, 'No.' The implicit and then the explicit guarantees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were sopping up the losses. Being on the Financial Services Committee, I can assure you, all roads lead to Freddie and Fannie."
Ms. Bachmann voted against the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) "both times," she boasts, and she has no regrets . . . .
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., raised a combined total of $2.2 million in the first quarter of 2011, outgaining presumed presidential contender Mitt Romney who raised $1.9 million over the same period.
Bachmann's political action committee, MichelePAC, raised $500,000 while her Congressional reelection fund took in $1.7 million. The funds raised for her Congressional reelection could be transferred to any federal campaign, including one for president.
Bachmann is a formidable fundraiser. The Washington Post recently ranked her the top fundraiser in the House during the 2009-2010 election cycle. This latest fundraising haul, coupled with her frequent visits to Iowa and New Hampshire, show she may be moving closer to a presidential run, and that she may have the financial backing to sustain a campaign. . . .
"Michele Bachmann is just nuts," said Jeremy Powers, a local DFL chair in Bachmann's district. "She is just an utter embarrassment."
And some Democrats — Powers included — don't hesitate to compare Bachmann with the aforementioned Palin, another conservative lightning rod in her mid-40s who speaks with an upper-Midwestern accent, is the mother of a large family and touts a stridently socially conservative agenda that Democrats regard as outright right wing.
"She is so principally and diametrically opposed to the core principles that we have," Donald McFarland, a Minnesota-based Democratic strategist, said of Bachmann. "She is further to the right than Attila the Hun."
"She's the poster girl for the radical fringe element," added Brian Smoot, who served as political director at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee last campaign cycle.
“I think they’re passionate about trying to beat Michele Bachmann,” said Michael Brodkorb, deputy chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party of Democratic efforts. “I think she probably frustrates them because she’s able to win every time.”
Democrats almost took out Bachmann in 2008, when national Democrats spent nearly $1.1 million blasting her in ads after she appeared to suggest in an October interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews that the media should investigate then-Sen. Obama and other Democrats in Congress for anti-American activities.
But as they prepare for the 2010 cycle, they are doubling down on their efforts to unseat the 43-year-old congresswoman.
Much of the Minnesota Democratic establishment has already thrown its backing to state Sen. Tarryl Clark in her bid to oust Bachmann. After announcing her candidacy last week, Clark — widely regarded as a political heavy-hitter in the state who was also touted as a potential gubernatorial candidate — immediately won the backing of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and St. Cloud College Democrats.
The backing forced former candidate El Tinklenberg, who came within 3 percent of defeating Bachmann in 2008, to drop out of the race — just one week after announcing he was running again.
The DCCC and the Minnesota DFL denied to POLITICO this week that they were working behind the scenes to clear the field for Clark, but strategists for both parties say there is little question the national Democratic Party will take an active role in the 2010 effort to oust Bachmann.
"There has been a lot of passion to defeat Michele Bachman, which will carry on from last cycle," said John Lapp, who served as executive director of the DCCC during the 2006 cycle under then-chair Rahm. . . .
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