MICHELE, WE HARDLY KNEW YE – AT 9:06 A.M. ET:  Is Michele Bachmann toast?   Frankly, that is the growing opinion of political observers, who have watched her campaign tank since Rick Perry entered the race.  They both appeal to the same constituencies, and it was expected that Bachmann would take some backers from Perry.

But the problem is deeper.  When she entered the race, Bachmann carried some real baggage.  Known as intelligent and well prepared, she also was known as a shoot-from-the-hip speaker who often "misspoke," got facts wrong, and often had to backtrack – not the traits you want in a president.

Last week, in attacking Rick Perry, Bachmann may well have gone too far, and there's been a backlash.  As governor, Perry once tried to order girls in Texas to be vaccinated with Gardasil, a drug that could prevent cervical cancer.  Perry now concedes that he should have proceeded more carefully, and in consultation with the legislature, but even critics concede his heart was in the right place.

Look, required vaccinations are a fact of life all over America, and in our armed forces.  In most school districts, you can't go to school without first getting "your shots."  It's a public health issue.  But Bachmann, in a way over-the-top attack, suggested that Perry was some kind of monster, preying on "innocent" little girls.  It did not go down well.  Later, she passed on a story from a mother who claimed Gardasil caused mental problems in her daughter.  There is absolutely no evidence to back that up, but Bachmann hasn't apologized. 

One piece of advice I'd give to politicians:  Don't give medical advice. 

Columnist Michael A. Walsh, in the New York Post, puts it this way:

The way Bachmann chose to go after Perry -- berating him for “government injections” of “innocent little 12-year-old girls” -- made it sound like the Texan was ordering up fiendish medical experiments instead of responding to legitimate public-health concerns.

Further, there is nothing wrong with states ordering vaccinations -- they do it all the time with infectious diseases like polio, and save millions of lives.

It’s fine for Bachmann to raise the issue of possible “crony capitalism” -- Perry’s former chief of staff was a lobbyist working for the vaccine’s manufacturer, Merck. But she went way over the line when, after the debate, she repeated the evil lie that vaccines can cause autism.

Bachmann, wrote former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, “seems prone to a serious condition: the compulsive desire to confirm every evangelical stereotype of censorious ignorance.”

COMMENT:   Sadly, I have to agree.  When Michele Bachmann entered the race we bent over backwards at Urgent Agenda to be fair to her.  This angered some readers, and one, a prominent individual and subscriber, canceled his subscription.  But our view here is that we come to conclusions after we see the evidence, not before.  Our growing feeling is that Michele Bachmann, in many respects a wonderful woman, bright and passionate, needs further work as a candidate.  This is not her year.  We hope she will grow, and become a force for responsible conservatism in the future.

September 19, 2011