The rising star of America's religious right

Michele Bachmannspeaks at a healthcare rally. Photo / AP

Mary Cecconi is the only Democrat to have beaten Michele Bachmann, the rising star of the Republican right, in a popular election. "It's my claim to fame," she laughs.

Her victory came in a race in 1999 for a seat on the school board of Stillwater, Minnesota, a tiny, picturesque river town on the banks of the Mississippi. Bachmann - then known locally as a conservative education activist - had unexpectedly run as part of a slew of right-wing Republicans. The move politicised what had previously been a non-partisan affair. It failed. Cecconi, the incumbent, held her position.

It was a minuscule electoral footnote yet it saw the political birth of a woman who just 12 years later is running for president and electrifying the radical right wing of the party.

Bachmann announced her White House run last week and then shone in the first major Republican debate. She is eclipsing Sarah Palin as the new darling of the Tea Party.

She is an evangelical whose husband runs a controversial Christian counselling service. She is a Minnesota congresswoman who has vowed to repeal healthcare reform and lambasts Barack Obama as a socialist. Like Palin, she makes political capital of her role as a mother to a large family: five children of her own and more than 20 foster kids. She is also a glamorous woman in a party that is frequently dominated by older white men.

Yet her remarkable story began with that Stillwater race and Cecconi, now a lobbyist, is not the only person to remember it.

Joan Beaver, a retired Stillwater high school teacher, recalled the election as heralding a shift in the town away from smalltown moderate Republicanism towards more extreme right-wing thought. "The town changed," she said.

Bachmann was born in Iowa, although the family moved to Minnesota when she was young. After a divorce, her mother remarried and Bachmann spent her childhood in a family of working-class Democrats. The real change came during adolescence, when at 16 she became "born again". She studied law at the religious Oral Roberts University, which taught a biblical worldview alongside its legal classes.

By the time Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, arrived in Stillwater with their burgeoning family they were staunch members of the religious right.

She home-schooled her own children but, by law, had to enrol her foster children into local public schools. It was that experience that led to her becoming involved in politics.

Still, to Beaver, it seems strange to see Bachmann striding across the American political stage with the intention of capturing the Oval Office and becoming the most powerful woman in the world. "She has more perseverance than anyone expected," she said.

Many on the American left see Bachmann's presidential ambitions as little more than a joke: the punchline to a gag about how far right the Republicans have drifted. She is mocked and lampooned but not all of her Stillwater opponents are joining in that ridicule.

Cecconi isn't. She recalls going to an education meeting two days after beating Bachmann in 1999 in which she became the main attraction. "She was amazing. She held the room in her hand."

Cecconi has a warning for the mockers. "She has got as far as she has by people underestimating her. I am not going to underestimate her."

It is not hard to find Bachmann critics, even among Republican supporters in the town. Barman Preston Norris voted for Bachmann for Congress but will not do so for the presidency. "She has some views that are just too much for that office," he said.

It is not hard to see what those views are. Bachmann's criticism of homosexuality is open and brutal. She has led the charge against gay marriage, even at the cost of a once-close relationship with a lesbian stepsister. In 2004, Bachmann said of gay people: "It's a very sad life. It's part of Satan, I think, to say that this is gay. It's anything but gay."

She is also staunchly anti-abortion and believes Obama is "the final leap to socialism", accusing him of wanting to set up youth indoctrination camps for teenagers.

Such extremism can lead to some odd ideological bedfellows. Away from Stillwater, in the rural hinterland of Bachmann's congressional district, she is more popular. Here, in a landscape of deeply religious small towns and farms, Bachmann's support is solid. In Buffalo, one Bachmann supporter was delighted she was running. "I think it's great. She can win and I have found the president disappointing," said one elderly woman. Seasoned Bachmann-watchers, such as Stillwater writer Karl Bremer, whose Ripple in Stillwater blog has chronicled Bachmann's career, says: "She has to soften her image. She is in the big leagues now. It is not just a little congressional race."

Bremer believes Bachmann's politics and career are about to get the sort of scrutiny they deserve, saying: "She has got plenty of skeletons in her closet."

One of those skeletons could be Frank Vennes, who was jailed for cocaine distribution and money-laundering in 1987. After his release, and apparently after finding God while in prison, Vennes became a friend of Bachmann and a big campaign donor for her elections. However, Vennes has recently been indicted on charges stemming from a Ponzi scheme and could end up behind bars again.

Then there is the issue of the Bachmann family farm in Wisconsin. The large rural property has been the recipient of considerable government largesse in the form of agricultural subsidies, despite the fact she is a vociferous critic of government handouts. Yet Bremer's blog has reported the farm has brought the Bachmanns about US$154,000 ($189,075) of government cash since 2001. Although not illegal but - given Bachmann's dislike of state welfare - it could make for some interesting headlines.

To her supporters - and there are many of them - such incidents do not matter. "The media beat up on her, I don't know why," said Lee Bohlsen, chairwoman of the Republican party of Washington county, in which Stillwater lies.

Bohlsen is an enthusiastic fan, praising Bachmann's attention to detail and warm personality. "I think she can win. She has a strong character," she said.

Reconciling the liberal and conservative visions of Bachmann is impossible. Her detractors and supporters inhabit different worlds. But it has led to speculation Bachmann might privately not believe all she says in public: that her ambition is simply to bask in the spotlight.

Perhaps, like Palin, she may have more of an eye on realising her value on the lucrative TV talk show circuit than on winning a political race. Bremer is unsure and not keen to test it.

"Does she believe what she says? Or is it just a road to success? I don't know the answer to that - but I do think she should be stopped."

In her own words

On the job market
If we took away the minimum wage - if conceivably it was gone - we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.

On patriotic politics
I wish the American media would take a look at the views of the people in Congress and find out: are they pro-America or anti-America?

On global warming
Carbon dioxide is ... not harmful ... yet we're being told that we have to reduce this natural substance, reduce the American standard of living, to create an arbitrary reduction in something that is naturally occurring on Earth.

On mysterious pandemics
I find it interesting that ... in the 1970s ... swine flu broke out under another ... Democrat President, Jimmy Carter. I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence.

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