Why Democrats are sad about Michele Bachmann's retirement

With Michele Bachman's exit, Republicans lose a headache, Democrats a potent fundraising tool.

(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

last updated 8 January 2015

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), a Tea Party stalwart who made a failed bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, announced Wednesday that she wouldn't seek re-election to a fifth term in Congress next year. Bachmann narrowly beat challenger Jim Graves in 2012, and the well-funded Democrat was expected to have a good chance of ousting her in a 2014 rematch.

Bachmann, who is facing investigations into her presidential campaign's fundraising, said in a video announcing her decision that she wasn't leaving due to the pressure, while predicting that Democrats would gloat about her departure.

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Bachmann may have been the loudest member of the class of 2006, the one who inspired the most heated arguments. But she will hardly be the most consequential; her enduring legacy may be the lessons she taught in how to lose friends and become completely uninfluential.With her exit, Democrats lose a potent fundraising tool. Republicans lose a headache they would just as soon do without. [National Journal]

Like any left-of-center political writer, I've appreciated Bachmann's hijinks over the years, not just because of her ability to bring The Crazy like no one else, but because she really did complicate the lives of those who wanted to neatly divide today's radicalized conservative movement into secular and religious "wings," or treat the Tea Party as something new and different from yesterday's extremists. [Washington Monthly]

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.

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