Bachmann: goodbye and good riddance

I was surprised - but not shocked - at Kommandant B's announcement that she would not be running for re-election in 2014, but I found that the after-the-fact triumphalism she displayed was not particularly connected to reality, much like her beliefs:

"My decision was not in any way influenced by any concerns about my being re-elected to Congress," [Michele] Bachmann said in her video message. "If I ran I would again defeat the individual who I defeated last year."

Oh, sure you would. Just like I'm going to be proclaimed Emperor of Brazil next year.

Although Bachmann's district is the most Republican in the state, she only bested [Jim] Graves by about 1 percentage point, or about 4,200 votes, in 2012. In November, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won 56.5 of the vote in the district.

That's not all, of course. Not when you've netted yourself a series of investigations (ranging from an Iowa state probe into whether she slipped money to local pol Kent Sorenson for work on her 2012 Presidential campaign to full-blown Federal investigations by the Office of Congressional Ethics, the Federal Election Commission and the FBI for similar fun stuff) that could make it really difficult for her to get re-elected.

I'm pretty sure that the Kommandant's continued aversion to reality (further detailed here and here, for starters) would stand out in any number of public forums, but the fact is that she got elected to the House of Representatives despite (or worse, because) of those long ski trips to Wackyland in her head. It's also more proof that in a democracy, some idiots will vote for the lowest common denominator (Rob Ford or Pauline Hanson, anyone?) because a demagogue knows exactly how to appeal to those idiots.