Michele Bachmann, Tea Party Favorite

Ezra Klein makes the case that Michele Bachmann is the candidate Sarah Palin was supposed to be:

And whatever it is that a tea partyer might not like about Palin, Bachmann’s got that covered, too. Want a candidate who can rattle off her reading list without embarrassing the ticket? “When I ask who she reads on the subject, she responds that she admires the late Milton Friedman as well as Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. ‘I’m also an Art Laffer fiend — we’re very close,’ she adds. ‘And [Ludwig] von Mises. I love von Mises,’ getting excited and rattling off some of his classics like ‘Human Action’ and ‘Bureaucracy.’ ‘When I go on vacation and I lay on the beach, I bring von Mises.’” Want a true believer who seems interested in winning the election rather than just carrying the torch? “We’ve got a huge messaging problem [on Medicare]. It needs to be called the 55-and-Under Plan. I can’t tell you the number of 78-year-old women who think we’re going to pull the rug out from under them.”
Bachmann is a better politician than Palin, a better policy wonk than Palin, and because she’s a better politician and a better policy wonk than Palin, she’s actually able to be a bit more extreme than Palin, as Palin rarely gets specific enough to do such precise ideological positioning. Put simply, Bachmann is the candidate Palin was supposed to be.

From what I've seen of Bachmann, she doesn't strike me as a mental heavyweight, even though she is an attorney and used to work for the IRS.  She definitely drinks the kool-aid, and she comes off to me as anti-intellectual, even when she's trying to sound smart, so that should be a benefit with the base.  I can't get over the crazy look in her eyes, and the fact that she can raise so much money totally floors me.  Overall though, the Wasilla Grifter has more people conned, and she will siphon off a ton of Bachmann support if she runs.  Neither would be qualified to be dog catcher in my opinion, but I can't control how crazy the GOP is these days.