Should Michele Bachmann Quit?

Michele Bachmann is having a helluva fall. Since winning the Iowa Straw Poll, the Presidential hopeful’s poll numbers have dwindled to the single digits. People are starting to notice how often she makes shit up. And she was so ignored during the most recent debate that she had to dress like a Navy admiral and yell, “Anderson!” until she was practically blue in the face in order to get any attention at all. Now, a Tea Party group is publicly accusing the Minnesotan of being an unserious candidate and trying to ride her Tea Party credentials to book sales and calling for her to quit the race. It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for her.

CNN reports that a tea party group that calls itself American Majority (presumably because “Uh Oh The White Guys Are Pissed!” is already the title of an in-production film starring the Wayans brothers) would very much prefer for Bachmann to step back and leave the race to contenders who are actually viable.

Yesterday, the group’s president, Ned Ryun, issued a statement calling for her to quit and accusing the Congresswoman of being nary more than a self-promoting rabble rousing loose cannon concerned, above all, with promoting her book that’s coming out next month. Another American Majority executive chimed in, adding that she was a “back bencher” and had been for years. As her poll numbers fall, the group worries that she’ll stray from the Tea Party’s core economic message and start talking abortion and gays, which draws attention away from the fact that Tea Partiers, above all, hate to pay taxes and are really mad that a black guy is the boss of them. He also implied that Bachmann’s recent staffing woes were indicative that she wasn’t capable of “real big league things.” You know, big league. Like the St. Louis Cardinals.

Bachmann’s camp thinks the group wants her out because Ryun supports Texas Grinch Rick Perry, since in their view, there’s only room for one terrifying asshole in this race. Her campaign manager responded thus,

The strength of the Tea Party is all individual’s opinions are valued but the no single leader speaks for it. Mr. Ryun, who supports Texas Gov. Rick Perry, is entitled to his own opinion. And that’s exactly what he is expressing. Michele Bachmann enjoys strong support from Americans across party lines and that certainly includes the Tea Party. She will continue to be a strong advocate for the values and principles reflected by the Tea Party as works toward a victory in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses as she seeks to win the Republican nomination.

Other Tea Party groups haven’t called for Bachmann’s resignation. Most major groups have yet to throw their full support behind one candidate, even though barring everyone else dying or converting to Islam, it’s pretty obvious at this point that Michele Bachmann will not be the Republican party’s 2012 Presidential nominee.

Meanwhile, Bachmann’s still out there campaigning like the unstoppable Energizer bunny of paranoia we’ve come to know and loathe. On Thursday, she wrung her hands behind a podium, lamenting the moral hazard of providing debt relief to student loan holders,

There is a morality in keeping our financial promises, and I don’t think we should push that off onto the taxpayer. The individual needs to repay and be responsible for repaying their student loan debt.

So, what would happen if Bachmann quit now? Her tens and tens of supporters would likely throw their support behind Perry, the most Bachmannesque of the rest of the field. Bachmann’s star would fade, at least until she started riding the crazy train around the talk show circuit. In place of stories of her impotent sputtering we’d have to read about the rest of the Republican field, and since she’s obviously not going to win, we’d have to face the horrifying possibility of one of them winning. I’m sure some jackass from some cable news channel would give Sarah Palin a call to get her opinion about another conservative female politician who can’t hack it, so we’d be subjected to more of Palin’s Terrible ‘Pinions.

Maybe, for our sanity’s sake, Bachmann shouldn’t throw in the towel just yet.