Bachmann headlines summit for conservative women
GOP U.S. House Rep. Michele Bachmann will be headlining an event today held by Smart Girl Politics, which calls itself the "home on the Internet for conservative women and grassroots activism." The group is holding its second aunnual Smart Girl Summit.
Sergio Gor, Bachmann's spokesperson, says Bachmann will address the following topics: "the Tea Party movement, the importance of the upcoming elections and the difference women have made and continue to make."
Gor notes that Bachmann will be flying back to Minnesota tonight.
Bachmann is featured in the current edition of Newsweek, in an article about "mama grizzlies"-- a term Sarah Palin had used to describe herself during her 2008 vice presidential bid. Here's a snippet about Bachmann from the article:
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Like Palin, Bachmann lives out her pro-life views convincingly. Over the years she has cared for 23 foster children--in addition to five of her own. "Four [foster kids] at a time were the most we had," she told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2007. "There were times I thought, I'm so tired, I'll never get conditioner in my hair again." As a state legislator, Bachmann pushed for anti--abortion initiatives, such as the 2005 Positive Alternatives Act, which has provided some $2.4 million in state Department of Health grants to programs that encourage and assist women in carrying their pregnancies to term and caring for their babies. (For her part, Whitman wonders how legislating against abortion jibes with the grizzlies' small-government arguments: "We can agree or disagree on the role of government in our personal life, but a less intrusive government is not in your bedroom.")
The article concludes with some sharp words about the "mama grizzlies."
Fundamentally, the mama-grizzly phenomenon is not really a movement or even a political term that represents a fully coherent set of ideas. It's mostly a marketing tool, meant to draw attention to Americans' broad dissatisfaction with the way things are. Fair enough. Many people are dissatisfied, and they want to vent and they want to change Washington. But in the wild, real mama grizzlies are known to be aggressive, irrational, and mean. The issues facing the country are complex, and bears are not.