The Iowa Circus, cont...

Dec 30th, 2011

Yesterday, I wrote that I thought Rep. Bachmann's handling of the news that her Iowa campaign Chairman, Kent Soreson, had defected to the Ron Paul camp was "crazy and conspiratorial." I resisted the urge to declare that I believed it to be an outright lie. However, Mike Enos, Bachmann's political director in Iowa, issued a denial that nearly seemed to do just that:

"I can say unequivocally that Kent Sorenson’s decision was, in no way financially motivated," Enos said in his statement. "While I personally disagree with Kent’s decision, and plan to stay with Michele Bachmann because I truly believe in her, I cannot, in good conscious watch a good man like Kent Sorenson be attacked as a 'sell-out.'"

Despite his stated intention of remaining with her campaign team, he later resigned. This seems to indicate that he was purged from the campaign for insisting on rational truth.

Rep. Bachmann is, unsurprisingly, doubling down:

"No one else knows about that conversation other than Kent Sorenson and myself."

It's extremely implausible that Bachmann would not have revealed this conversation to her team immediately to begin planning damage control. The reaction of Enos and his subsequent break from her team expose not only Bachmann's executive inability but, also her apparent mental instability.

The Ron Paul camp insists her claim is fiction. Paul himself is quoted by KCAU:

"He called up and asked if he could join us and I said 'That's a great idea!' He's somebody I've known for a long time and we've helped him in the past."

Sorenson appeared on CNN to declare that the alleged conversation "never happened."



I am no fan of Ron Paul. I find him absurd. But, Bachmann is coming out of this looking both desperate and delusional.

With four days to go before the Iowa Circus, I expect this all to get even more entertaining.

The Iowa Circus

Dec 29th, 2011

The latest round of crazy involves a bit player making a big splash just ahead of the Iowa GOP caucus. The Des Moines Register reports:

"In a stunning, late-breaking Iowa caucus turnabout, the state chairman for presidential candidate Michele Bachmann ditched her campaign Wednesday night to endorse Ron Paul, a rival in the race for the GOP nomination.

The defection of Kent Sorenson, an Iowa state senator, came just six days before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, and caught the Bachmann campaign by surprise. Sorenson had chaired Bachmann’s caucus efforts here for months, and even attended a Bachmann event in Indianola on Wednesday afternoon just hours before appearing at a Paul rally in Des Moines to announce his endorsement."