Michelle Bachmann's Total Lack of Class

I strongly feel that Palin will be entering the race sooner than later.

If, however, she chooses not to run, I join Legal Insurrection’s motto of ABMB, Anybody But Michelle Bachmann for the Republican primary.

My strong opposition of Bachmann is not because of her lack of executive experience nor because of her inability to respond to simple questions from reporters. In short, it's her lack of class.

Bachmann owes Palin a tremendous debt of gratitude for helping her get reelected. Yes, Bachmann had expressed her thanks immediately after the elections in 2010, but what is that worth in face of her current actions? How can one attempt to explain the hiring of a campaign manager who slammed Palin publicly and continues to lead your team in an underhanded campaign against her as a response to her support, endorsement, campaigning, and fundraisings for you?

Opposing a fellow candidate’s policies is one thing. Attacking the person who enabled your reelection and is not even in the race yet is unacceptable and inexcusable. It shows classlessness, a lack of basic manners, and is totally un-presidential.

Here's an excerpt of Legal Insurrection, and you can read the rest of his great piece right over here. 

There is only one candidate in the Republican field whose campaign staff has used trash talking Sarah Palin as a campaign strategy.

Michelle Bachmann and/or her senior staff have decided that the path to short-term success is to insult Palin and to present Bachmann as the only viable alternative to establishment Republicans.

First it was Ed Rollins publicly insulting Palin almost at the very moment Bachmann announced her run; at the time I left open the possibility that Rollins had gone rogue, but Bachmann herself never made it right and Rollins still is the brains behind her campaign.

Next was this report of what is going on in the run up to the Iowa straw poll:

”I like Sarah Palin a lot,” Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann said at Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate. “We are very good friends.” …

But a personal relationship between the conservative female leaders has, in fact, been nonexistent for the past 16 months, as aides from Bachmann’s camps have privately — and sometimes publicly — disparaged Palin to an extent that has caused growing exasperation in Palin world. That behind-the-scenes rancor is now boiling over as the former Alaska governor inches closer to a presidential run.

Some of the volunteers who have been organizing here in the nation’s first voting state for a potential Palin campaign have been particularly miffed by what they describe as a concerted effort from the Bachmann camp to spread rumors that Palin has already decided not to run and will eventually endorse the Minnesotan.

“It is so pervasive and so continuous that it can’t be rogue people doing it without the understanding and encouragement from the candidate herself,” a Palin supporter in Iowa told RCP. “The entire Bachmann team has gone around the state saying Palin is a lightweight and a quitter and saying that Sarah’s about to endorse Michele. Bachmann’s campaign is radioactively dirty. They are shameless.”

In the whispering campaign against Palin, Bachmann likely picked up some supporters who were hoping for better but figuring Bachmann was the best they could get.

Michele Bachmann is entitled to run her campaign any way she wants, and using typical Ed Rollins tactics is her prerogative.

But millions of Palin supporters — some of whom support her for President, others of whom merely support her because of what she stands for and has gone through — are entitled to take Bachmann’s campaign tactics into account when choosing a “Plan B” should Palin decide not to run. Michelle Bachmann has spit on those supporters at her political peril.

For me, Plan B means anyone but Bachmann. And it is enough to finally get me motivated for the primaries. 

In all probability, Plan B will never see the day of light.  However, I consider Bachmann's lack of basic human gratitude as a blemish never to be erased or forgotten even several elections down the line.