UPDATE (12/31/2011): Ron Paul bribed Sorenson with $30,000 and a promise of $8,000 a month to secure his defection from the Bachmann campaign. It makes me wonder, “What kind of corrupt loser dumb-asses is Bachmann attracting?”
I’m so glad I don’t have a horse in this race that just keeps getting more and more stupid every day. The Iowa co-chairman of Michele Bachmann’s failing presidential campaign has just defected in order to support an arguably dumber candidate: Ron Paul.
Newt Gingrich’s recent drop in the polls has led him to be in 3rd place behind Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Granted, I highly doubt Ron Paul is going to finish 2nd, but it would be a huge win for Romney (and a huge embarrassment for Iowa) if he did. The defection of State Senator Kent Sorenson probably won’t matter much in the long run; it’s not like Bachmann stood a chance; but there is a slight chance it will help Paul just enough to give Mitt Romney a crushing victory over Gingrich.
That’s not really the interesting part of this, however. For me, I received this news wondering, “What kind of loser dumb-asses is Bachmann attracting?”
Seriously, who defects to support Ron Paul? It’s not as if Ron Paul going to vote for that multi-million dollar pork project in his district. And it can’t be on issues, as Kent Sorenson insists, because Paul and Bachmann are complete opposites in their idiot rhetoric.
If I had to venture a guess, I would say it was probably political posturing. A couple of friends I have in Iowa say Kent Sorenson is in pretty deep with the TEA Party movement in Iowa. Having endorsed Ron Paul for the 2012 Iowa Caucus will give him a bit more street-cred with the most aggressive activists in that crowd. I can’t say it’s a good calculation if he wants to advance his career to US Congress or any state-wide office, but it’s probably a calculation like that none the less.
Of course, it’s also possible that Bachmann just really pissed him off or left him horribly unimpressed. According to a couple of reports, the defection came just hours after appearing on stage with Bachmann at one of her rallies. Did Bachmann say something really dumb? Probably. Was it dumber than normal though? I don’t know. Or is it possible that he just felt incredibly awkward standing on a stage in front of a measly 20 supporters a week before the Caucus?
A similar embarrassing incident was one of the final nails in Sam Brownback’s campaign in 2007 just before the Ames Straw Poll.
