Bachmann: Dems deride me because they don’t want me to be president

“You must feel you’re doing something right,” radio host Mike Gallagher told Rep. Michele Bachmann yesterday, because she’s so ridiculed by lefties. The 6th district representative responded that she sees it as a “badge of honor” that she tops Nancy Pelosi’s list of Republican targets next election. Instead of acknowledging how her over-heated rhetoric might factor into such criticisms, she says it’s a woman thing:

“Also with women politicians, they want to make sure no women, no woman becomes president before a Democrat woman, and so they’re doing everything they can to, I think, sabotage women like Sarah Palin, perhaps women like myself, or similarly situated women, to make sure that we don’t have a prominent national voice.”

Bachmann’s been all over the place on her future plans. In March, she said she wouldn’t run for president. Two weeks ago she said she’d consider it if she felt “that’s what the Lord was calling me to do.” (Of course, such a calling is what got her involved in national politics in the first place.)

The Daily Beasts — in a piece that asks, “Will Bachmann ever pay a political price for her fevered outbursts? In today’s GOP, is there such a thing as too crazy?” — considers the issue briefly, but comes to no conclusion about Bachmann’s presidential prospects. Instead, it concludes with a quote from Norm Orenstein, Minnesota native and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who circles back to Bachmann’s headline-grabbing utterances:

“I do believe you’re dealing with someone who’s got an enormous ego that keeps getting fed,” said Ornstein. “I doubt very much that anybody who is either close to her or has some power over her has said, ‘Are you nuts?’”