True North

I think it’s unlikely, but far from impossible, that the GOP will take the US House back in 2010; beyond the historical tradition of the president losing seats at midterm, I think that there’s a lot of generalized dissatisfaction with the Administration out there.  It’s easy and tempting to fall into Pauline Kael Syndrome – none of my friends voted for him! – but I think that at least among “independents”, Obama has a lot more in common with Jesse Ventura than Bill Clinton.  And while that may or may not mean a change in administration in 2012, it could very well mean that a lot of Representatives who got in on Obama’s coattails last year will wind up short of fabric next year.

And if that happens, what?

Center-left site “HillBuzz’ ” ponders what is, for local lefties, the unthinkable: Speaker of the House Michele Bachmann:

The Tea Parties could install Bachmann as Speaker, we believe, if the Tea Party Movement itself grows, buckles down, and becomes a larger force to be reckoned with going into 2010.

Palin herself could help deliver Bachmann unto the Speaker’s chair, if the candidate Palin campaigns for next year mostly win, and the next Congressional majority owes a lot to Palin.  It appears Palin and Bachmann are friendly, if not already allies.  Palin would be well-served with one of her own as Speaker.  That could help Palin’s groundgame in 2012 immensely.

Of course, that’d get an awful lot of local lefties to glaze over and start muttering incomprehensibly to themselves; Bachmann inspires among the local and regional left the most lumpen groupthink in American politics; like Sarah Palin, Laura Ingraham, Katherine Kersten and indeed pretty much every “out” female conservative, she is “teh crazee” to her detractors.  “Bachmann Derangement Syndrome”, as practiced by the Representative’s many online stalkers, creates a dissociative state where fact and ratonionality lose meaning; indeed, it’s ironic, given the hatred that so many of her stalkers feel for her fairly fundamenalist Christianity, the amount of garbage her detractors are willing to take on nothing more than faith.

While the writer correctly notes that the GOP base hates labels, there’s a case to be made for just a little bit…:

Whoever replaces Nancy Pelosi needs to be a firecracker.  We also think the GOP needs to put a woman in that Speaker’s chair.  Because of the misogyny the Democrats have wallowed in for the last two years, many women are open to voting Republican for the first time in their lives.  Republicans, thus, have the once-in-our-lifetime chance to be seen as “the party for women”.  Some of you might not like identity politics, but a great deal of independents sure do.

I’ll get back to ‘em on that.

So is there something to the idea of a couple of female conservative firebrands with a shared history of sparking unreasoning derangementi in their foes, leading an insurgency?

Cross-posted and comments welcome at Shot In The Dark.