Okay, we all knew that Michele Bachmann’s reality is, to put it kindly, not the same one the rest of us are living in. But when she starts saying that people should vote for Romney instead of Obama because Obama is rich and out of touch with the “common man”? Wow.
USA Today caught up with Bachmann at the Republican National Convention earlier this week and asked her how someone with “vast wealth” like Romney could “connect with the American public, really understand what the plight of the American public?”
“Well, President Obama is extremely wealthy,” Bachmann replied. “He and his wife have been wealthy for a number of years, and so I think that’s really the issue. Obama is wealthy, what do, or — what does he understand about the common man right now?”
“And I think what people care about is not hating someone for what their assets are — the American people don’t hate President Obama because he’s a very wealthy individual,” she added.
“What they care about is how their lives are, would their lives be better? And I think it’s very clear under the Romney-Ryan ticket the average Americans’ lives will be much better, they’ll have a lot more money to spend in the way that they want, and they’ll also have a much more secure future for their children.”
Okey dokey.
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VeritasKnight
September 4, 2012 at 11:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Understanding the common man is like a loop. You get it when you’re poor and middle class. Once you make your first million, though, bam. Now you’re a rich, snobby son of a bitch. Once you make your first HUNDRED million, though, you understand the average joe again.
Or something.
raven
September 4, 2012 at 11:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Bachmann is the poster person for fundie induced cognitive impairment.
1. Does she ever notice that most of what she says makes no sense and/or is wildly wrong.
2. Do the people in Minnesota who keep voting her into office notice? Do they care?
Raging Bee
September 4, 2012 at 11:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s another racial dog-whistle: the Obamas are scary black people who got rich (making money that white people should have made), instead of staying in their proper place. It’s just more otherization, along with their usual incoherent nonsense about his birth certificate and his college transcripts.
dingojack
September 4, 2012 at 11:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So Bachann’s argument against ‘Romney rich, does he understand the ‘common man’? (who is not rich) is:
1. Well Obama is rich too – so there!
2. Obama is rich so what does he know about the ‘common man’?
3. The ‘common man’ doesn’t care about being rich anyway.
4. The ‘common man’ doesn’t hate Obama for being rich.
1. is just ‘yes but he is too’
2. implies that Romney doesn’t know about the ‘common man’ either, since both are rich.
3. That being rich isn’t an issue anyway (so why mention 1. & 2. then Michele?)
4. That people don’t hate Obama for being rich (in contrast to Rmoney?)
I’ll take non sequiturs for $1000 thanks Alex!
Dingo
—–
Notice she can’t even answer a fairly straightforward question. The Right’s punditry strays into ‘can’t even lie straight in bed‘ territory.
lofgren
September 4, 2012 at 11:50 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Once you make your first hundred million, you can simply tell your Average Joe what to think. You are beyond mere understanding.
Abby Normal
September 4, 2012 at 11:55 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That may just be the most cogent argument Bachmann’s ever presented. And while I’m at it, I’d say She Wolf is the most photorealistic Jackson Pollock piece.
Michael Heath
September 4, 2012 at 12:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think the most likely explanation for Rep. Bachmann’s behavior is as follows.
The Holy Spirit transported Rep. Bachman’s soul into Mitt Romney’s body. Ms. Bachmann now feels the pain Mr. Romney feels by acting as if he’s in touch with the common man while trying to bilk us, and his failure to get us to believe him. Ms. Bachmann is then transported back into her own body where she is psychologically projecting this Mitt Romney plutocratic defect onto President Obama.
This is also some grad-level wingnuttery at play here given Bachmann’s projection of another’s failure onto another. We’ve reached a whole new level; it’ll be interesting to see how Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, David Barton, and Bryan Fischer respond. Can they keep up? Somehow I think so.
justsomeguy
September 4, 2012 at 12:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
She’s right about one thing, though: most people don’t begrudge a person for their wealth. We save our begrudging for *how* those people get their wealth.
Modusoperandi
September 4, 2012 at 1:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Shorter Bachmann: “I have no idea how things work.”
Area Man
September 4, 2012 at 1:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If I understand this correctly, her answer to the question of whether Romney can connect with the public because of his vast wealth is clearly “No”. It’s just that the other guy can’t either.
Ace of Sevens
September 4, 2012 at 1:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Is Obama any richer than Bachmann? I understand her husband’s clinic does brisk business.
Matrim
September 4, 2012 at 1:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Honestly, I think she knows exactly what she’s saying (as did Marco Rubio during his RNC speech, and Rick Perry during one of his recent interviews). While she is towing the party line I think she has her sights set on 2016 and another presidential bid.
d cwilson
September 4, 2012 at 2:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michele Bachmann is the Bizarro Congresswoman. Everything she says is the opposite of true.
anubisprime
September 4, 2012 at 2:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Framing!
For the hard of thinking that haz de bigotry and de hates fur dem furriners that wot iz considerably richer then youw and ‘appens to be prez of the country!
Michele is just helpin’ the dumb out by givin ‘em a vague reason why they are right to hateses!
dugglebogey
September 4, 2012 at 4:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m very curious. When she says the phrase “average american” I wonder what she pictures in her mind?
Any guesses?
dalbryn
September 4, 2012 at 4:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This actually fits a pattern I’ve been seeing. If you hear an argument that you think it compelling, you just use it against the person you don’t like whether it’s true or not. The important thing is that you think the argument is compelling. For example, this weekend I hear that Romney is better than Obama because Obama hates wind power and Romney does not.
matthewhodson
September 4, 2012 at 6:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Romney is “old money” where as Obama is that icky “new money”.
Romney understands the plight of the commoners he has been surrounded by them his whole life, they tend his garden, cook his dinners, clean his house and cars. Obama cant compete with that.
ottod
September 4, 2012 at 6:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
By my standards, the Obamas are wealthy, not extremely wealthy, but wealthy, and they’ll certainly become more wealthy when they reenter the private sector. And even though Obama was raised without want, neither of the Obamas were apparently born to or raised with wealth. It’s hard, for instance, to imagine either of them counseling college students to just borrow the money to go to school from their parents. And they worked to go through school, and worked at real jobs thereafter to achieve what they have now.
On the other hand, by Romney’s standards, the Obamas and I(and most of the rest of us) are much closer, possibly indistinguishably closer, to each other in terms of wealth. I don’t imagine that walking out of grad school into a berth in investment banking is the same as what the Obamas experienced.
The plight of the common man has probably not changed much since the Obamas experienced it; it may have changed considerably since Romney’s father experienced it as an ill-educated immigrant.
Michele has a hard time with the concept of being out of touch (with anything).
Michael Heath
September 4, 2012 at 7:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
dugglebogey writes:
Her voting base.
Tony •King of the Hellmouth•
September 4, 2012 at 9:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You’re almost a god at that point.
Hmm, fits well with Mormon beliefs.
cactuswren
September 5, 2012 at 5:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yeah.
jayarrrr
September 5, 2012 at 8:43 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I gotta pile on… That woman is bat-shit insane. Are there pockets of lead paint chip consumption in her district?
dingojack
September 5, 2012 at 9:01 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Are there pockets of lead paint chip consumption in her district?”
I think they grind it up and use it like salt; why else would they vote for her?
;) Dingo
lofgren
September 5, 2012 at 9:47 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wow, they’re so backwards they can’t even use condiments right. Lead paint tastes sweet, not salty.
kermit.
September 5, 2012 at 1:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
lofgren: Lead paint tastes sweet, not salty.
I did not know that. That explains why there is such a problem with toddlers chewing on the window frames in old houses.
tfkreference
September 5, 2012 at 8:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I grew up in what is now the outstate part of her district, and shudder to think that I would be her idea of a Real American (I voted for Reagan–twice) if I hadn’t been exposed to the real world (and science) by going to college in a bigger city. There but for the grace of freethoughtblogs go I.