Save your money and your time

Yesterday, I saw that there was a new short “insider” book out about the Michele Bachmann presidential campaign. I’m sure most of you remember that I was thoroughly entertained by the crazy train that was the 2012 Republican primaries, and Michele “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann was, for one brief, shining moment, the conductor. She was definitely one of the most scarily hilarious—hilariously scary?—candidates I’ve ever seen.

So when I saw this book was out, I thought, “Oo! That’s worth a quick read!” Oh, how mistaken I was. At least I didn’t spend $2.99 on it (the price on Amazon) and instead chose to exercise our Prime membership and borrow it for free from the Kindle Lending Library (a nice feature). If I’d paid any money for it, I’d be pissed. I can never get the moments back in my life that I spent reading this drivel, though.

There is just so much wrong here. Where do I begin? The editing is pretty bad. The author speaks of “thunder and lightening.” I don’t fret about that when I see it posted somewhere, but when I read it in a book, I am not impressed. It was also written that there was an issue with “steeling the list.” Seriously? Inexcusable in a published work.

What really bothered me, though, was the nonstop snark of the main writer, who I guess was John Gilmore. Both he and his co-author, Peter Waldron, were higher-ups in Bachmann’s campaign, and seem to have grown rather disenchanted with their candidate. Mainly because she wasn’t religious enough, or took the advice of others over them? It was hard to tell in this jumble of junior high school Mean Girl snarkiness. Gilmore goes after everyone.

• He writes that Minnesota disgraced itself by electing Al Franken.
• He wrote something about the Democrats putting rollers on Walter Mondale and wheeling him out to campaign.
• About a reporter for The Atlantic, he wrote this: “No word if the reporter ever wrote a story about Bill Ayers. Her first name is French for a particular shade of red. You know the type.” What does that even mean?
• He writes that Ron Paul was a “seriously unserious candidate.”
• He went after Florida, writing, “In Lutz, Florida (only Florida would have a town that rhymes with putz)....”
• He went after Minnesota again: “Minnesotans, as is their wont, remain largely clueless.”
• He even went after Erica Jong for some reason, calling her a “dated, flash-in-the-pan author.”
• He constantly goes after the “liberal media.” Yawn.
• He goes into a long defense of Peter Waldron, his co-author. Why devote so much time and space to such a thing? Perhaps a little too much protesting?
• The real kicker for me was this about Bachmann, which morphed into a slam against Hillary Clinton: “...[S]he possessed no such skills. The same can be said of any number of democratic candidates, but, somehow, they are better actors, thus getting away with it. Nothing else explains the success of the very unaccomplished Hillary Clinton.”

We’re talking about the very popular former Secretary of State here, folks. And this guy calls her “very unaccomplished.”

The entire thing had a tone of misogyny, snarkiness, and pettiness, although he had high praise for Marcus Bachmann. Make of that what you will. He also seems to still have a thing for Michele, ignoring the rejection of his candidate by the majority, chalking it up to campaign mismanagement rather than the candidate’s own flaws. He truly seems to think that if Bachmann had been allowed to unleash her evangelical mojo, she would have appealed to more people. He just doesn’t seem to get that her extreme message didn’t resonate beyond a relatively small group of conservative Christians. I also have to say that if this guy is part of the conservative Christian evangelical movement, and he seems to be, he’s not exactly bringing anyone over to his side with his snarkiness and puerile insults. Just the opposite. He comes across as a petty little bitch.

He winds up with a slam on Michele Bachmann: “There may be second acts in American life, but if there is any justice, Michele Bachmann will not have one.” I can’t argue with that, but I have to wonder just what he thought his candidate was all about. I learned very little new from this book. It seems pretty obvious that there were ethical violations in the campaign, although the investigation is ongoing. It is common knowledge that campaign workers were not treated well and many went unpaid.

You know what you get when you treat people that way? You get a misogynistic former campaign worker writing a shitty book. I’m no Bachmann fan, but the tone of this book made me dislike the author even more. I’m glad the entire campaign tanked, because dealing with these insufferable idiots in a presidential administration would be close to torture.