Michele Bachmann is like Howard Dean, but crazy

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Over at TNR yesterday, Jonathan Chait laid out a path for Bachmann to win the GOP presidential nomination. She's still a long-shot, but it makes sense, particularly if she's able to build on her formidable ability to connect with the base (including the Tea Party) and raise money.

If the Republican field remains weak, with no major challenger on the right (like Palin) entering the race, and with the "establishment" stuck with Romney and Pawlenty, the latter of whom is trying desperately to bridge the divide and appeal broadly across the party while the former continues to struggle with a decided lack of credibility with conservatives (and with being a governor who introduced health-care reform very much like Obama's), Bachmann could excite the grassroots enough to win Iowa and then carry that momentum through New Hampshire, with Romney will win, and into South Carolina and other states where she should could pull off a series of victories that propel her to the nomination.

Okay, highly unlikely. But would you really put it past today's GOP, with its extremist right-wing base (whether Tea Party or "social conservative" (i.e., religious/theocratic), or both), to pick a crazy extremist like Bachmann?