Core of Conviction : My Story (9781101563571)

by Bachmann, Michele

  Another champion in my 2006 campaign was the man soon to be the top Republican leader in the House, John Boehner. The Ohioan came to the city of St. Cloud, in the northwest part of my district, to help fire up the troops. Boehner was a professional, and yet he also had an easygoing charm that seemed somehow familiar. As he lit up a cigarette on the porch outside the building, I suddenly realized who he reminded me of—the TV singer and movie star Dean Martin! John was on a mission to help Republicans retain control of the House, but as summer turned to fall, Republican chances for holding their majority worsened.

  Despite all the fund-raising help I received, my opponent, Patty Wetterling, had even more help; she outspent me that year by more than $1.7 million. And that was the year the Democrats, riding a nationwide electoral wave, recaptured both the U.S. House and the Senate from the GOP. My friend Mark Kennedy, a very good man and an excellent member of Congress, was swamped in that wave; he lost Minnesota, including the 6th district, his home base, to Minnesota’s next U.S. senator, Democrat Amy Klobuchar.

  Yet despite the Democrats’ tide, I was able to win the House seat—by a solid eight points. I felt proud to be the first female Republican ever to represent Minnesota in the House.

  And yes, later that night at the Lake Minnetonka fund-raiser, Karl gave me back my book—my copy of Team of Rivals. Whenever I see him, he won’t let me live down “lose the gloves.” And as for those cute pink gloves that the president wisely talked me into “losing,” I still have them. I just have never worn them again in public.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A Rebel in Speaker Pelosi’s Congress

  IN January 2007, Democrat Nancy Pelosi was elected Speaker of the House, to preside over the newly sworn-in 110th Congress. As she banged down her gavel, she made her intentions clear: a new San Francisco–style liberal era for the nation. I should say “progressive,” because liberals don’t like to be called “liberals” anymore.

  The GOP had been clobbered in the last election, no doubt about that. I was one of just thirteen Republican House freshmen, while the Democrats across the aisle boasted forty-one new members. We Republicans were a smaller and humbler bunch—although for my part, I was determined to continue the good fight. We had worked very hard to win in 2006, and I wasn’t about to stop that work just because I found myself in the minority. I knew the ideas of fiscal responsibility and social conservatism had not been vanquished that previous November. What had been rejected in that election was a bad brew of GOP incompetence, carelessness, and a dash of corruption. So the people threw out the Republican majority and instead handed the gavels to Nancy Pelosi in the House and Harry Reid in the Senate. I might note that Republicans were leaving power in Congress when the annual deficit was $162 billion; the next year, under Democratic congressional leadership, it soared to $455 billion, and from there, into the trillions.

  In the new Congress, as a freshman in the minority I was under no illusions as to how my ideas would be received. For my part, I didn’t go into politics to be part of either the minority or the majority. The size of the group matters less than what the group does. I went into politics to change the system, giving people more of their liberty and more of their earnings. I am an unashamed champion of the free market. Private business is the backbone and engine of American life. And when government kills the golden goose, day by day, that’s when we have to man up. As I liked to joke, having stared down five two-year-olds and twenty-eight teenagers in our home, I was ready for any kind of confrontation. And as I had learned while fighting against the federal government takeover of education, and also fighting in favor of academic excellence, the right kind of leadership could develop an effective majority. That is, an effective majority forcing genuine change. A majority that’s really worth having.

  Yet as a freshman in the current minority, I could see the need to choose my fights carefully. One fight I chose seemed inconsequential on the surface, but, in fact, it symbolized something very important—our right to purchase whatever product we choose, consistent with health and safety limitations. It was over those compact fluorescent lightbulbs. The CFLs, as they’re called—although, of course, CFLs aren’t lightbulbs at all; they’re squiggly-shaped things and sort of dark even when lit. Yet while CFLs are easy to make fun of, we must also be concerned about them, because they contain mercury, a birth defect–causing toxin. If you drop one and it breaks, your home could be declared a hazmat site. So I proposed the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act in 2008, seeking to restore the right of Americans to choose their own lightbulbs—the kind that best suits them. My bill didn’t go anywhere in Nancy Pelosi’s Congress, but it sent an electric shock through the country; soon my office was getting letters and e-mails from all over, cheering on my lightbulb rebellion.

  I’ve always enjoyed sharing ideas with a national audience, just as I enjoyed sharing ideas with individual voters. Some things need to be said, and yet they can be said while remaining both polite and fair. So even as a freshman in the political minority, I wanted to speak out. It wasn’t always easy—and sometimes, as I was soon to discover, it was downright risky.

  The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 was one of those many bills with a nice name—and a terrible impact. It worked to reduce access to American energy resources at a time when we needed to responsibly unlock those resources. Indeed, by the summer of 2008, oil prices had spiked all the way up to $145 a barrel on the world market, which meant that U.S. gasoline prices rose above $4 a gallon. Back home in Minnesota, my constituents were furious; some families in my far-flung district were forced to spend $150 a week or more on gas. People who worked at nursing homes, for example, stopped coming to work, because the price of gas made the driving to work out of reach.

  Yet Speaker Pelosi and her liberal majority didn’t want to do anything except attack the companies that created American energy—a clear case of blaming the messenger. After all, the oil companies weren’t the problem; the problem was a worldwide surge in demand, coupled with scarcity of supply, especially in the United States, where environmental restrictions were limiting production. Indeed, that’s the classic formula for higher prices. And truth to tell, I think many liberals in Congress were quietly happy about high gas prices. Why? Because they had never really liked automobiles, anyway; they preferred mass transit—or bicycles. To be sure, the former vice president and presidential candidate Al Gore never seemed far from a limousine or private jet, but as for what the elite wished for the rest of us, well, I guess we could just walk or take a bus.

  For our part, we House Republicans found our voice on this potent issue. Our idea of a good energy policy could be summed up in one word: “more.” That is, more of everything. We endorsed an “all of the above” approach to energy production, seeking to use more oil, more coal, more natural gas, more nuclear power—more of every kind of energy, in fact, as long as it could be justified by the rigorous workings of free-market forces. In the summer of 2008, House minority leader John Boehner arranged for some of us to travel to Alaska, so that we could see the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—an obvious place for some “drill, baby, drill.”

  And that’s where I first met the charming and charismatic Alaska governor, Sarah Palin. We had a wonderful discussion over a meal in Fairbanks; I shared with her how much I had enjoyed my summer in Alaska thirty-three years earlier and how that visit had permanently changed my views about Alaska’s—and America’s—energy potential.

  Indeed, Sarah and I realized that we had a lot in common. We shared the same firm faith; we both had carved out political careers thanks to our supportive husbands. In addition, we both had five biological kids.

  We even talked about speculation that she might be selected as John McCain’s running mate at the upcoming Republican convention—to be held, as it happened, in my state and nearby city of St. Paul, Minnesota. She laughed at the thought: “Oh, that’s not going to happen.”
At the time, that fateful phone call from the Arizona senator had not yet occurred. But then, just a few days later, it did.

  During those summer months of 2008, I became increasingly alarmed that Barack Obama might actually win the presidency. I watched in amazement as the junior senator from Illinois rolled over Hillary Rodham Clinton to win the Democratic nomination. I didn’t favor Hillary, of course, but I could see that she seemed less leftist revolutionary than Obama. And that’s saying something, considering that we’re talking about Hillary Clinton. Did I prefer her, and not him, answering that proverbial 3:00 A.M. phone call? Actually, I preferred John McCain to either of them, by a wide margin, but if he couldn’t be in the mix I would have wanted Mrs. Clinton.

  House Speaker Pelosi and her Democratic colleague in the Senate, majority leader Harry Reid, were already bad enough, I figured. But the idea that President Bush could be replaced in the White House by a man whom National Journal rated as the most liberal senator in the chamber—giving him the keys to the Treasury filled me with concern.

  John McCain secured the Republican presidential nomination. Though he was behind in the polls through most of 2008, I believed that by election day, the American people would favorably compare McCain’s lengthy record of achievement with Obama’s brief record of radicalism. In the last few days before the voting, many of us hoped, the nation’s support would finally shift from Obama to McCain. And I was honored to be asked to speak on McCain’s behalf at the Republican National Convention, held just a skip and a jump away from our home in Stillwater.

  The focus of my brief talk on that day was service, John McCain’s service—as a family man, as a war hero, as a political leader. Noting that John and his delightful and stunning wife, Cindy, had adopted a child, as had millions of other bighearted Americans, I added, “Whether it’s being a foster parent or being a community first responder or wearing the uniform of the United States Army, service is all American. Service isn’t a political trait—though some presidential nominees certainly know more about service than others.”

  Then I added, “John McCain not only recognizes that personal liberty needs elbow room; he’s spent a lifetime ensuring that freedom has what it needs to grow. John McCain doesn’t just speak the language of service; he’s lived it.” And so, I concluded, “America needs John McCain’s service in the White House!” That was on September 2, 2008.

  The very next night, of course, from the same podium, McCain’s choice for his running mate, Sarah Palin—whom I was proud to call a friend—delivered her memorable acceptance speech. It was surely an electrifying speech, energizing not only dispirited Republicans but also stirring the entire country to start wondering who Obama really was. Building on her own life story, Sarah compared her early career with Obama’s early career, “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.” Great line! The McCain-Palin ticket had now taken the lead. Perhaps the boost from the convention speech might last till election day.

  But then came the shuddering economic meltdown. Suddenly, everything changed. On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers, the venerable New York City investment house, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The signs of economic trouble had been visible for years, of course; the political—and politically correct—government creations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, had been puffing ever more air into the housing bubble since the 1990s. Indeed, bureaucrats and politicos in Washington had been delighted by the growth of Fannie and Freddie, because now they could look forward to making private-sector-level salaries while still working under the protection of the public sector. So while a few brave Cassandras—notably Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute—kept warning that Fannie and Freddie were destined to blow up, much of Washington wasn’t worried at all. Instead, Beltway-ites were looking to jump on the Fannie/Freddie gravy train. Yet bubbles eventually deflate, and that’s what started happening in 2007. And then bubbles eventually pop, and that’s what happened in 2008. Confidence worsened, and the markets plummeted. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, having hit a peak of 14,000 in October 2007, plunged only a year later to 8,000.

  On September 19, 2008, four days after Lehman collapsed, Treasury secretary Hank Paulson made an extraordinary request to Congress: He asked for a vote to give him a check for $700 billion, in the form of a Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). That grand sum would enable him, Paulson, to bail out the big banks on Wall Street and across the country—with no strings attached. In other words, the same financial institutions that had caused the crash—having grossly overinvested in mortgage-backed securities and other “toxic trash” financial instruments—were now going to be bailed out in the wake of that crash. It was outrageous beyond belief, and I said so loudly. And people back home agreed. At my congressional office, opposition to TARP exceeded support by at least ten to one.

  When Secretary Paulson came to the House to plead his case personally, I stood up and said: “We’ve already bailed Bear Stearns for $29 billion, and AIG for $85 billion,” and then went through all the details of the bailouts, which hadn’t stopped the economy’s slide. Then I asked: “Where is your evidence to prove that if Congress gives you a $700 billion blank check, with no strings attached, that you’ll be able to turn the economy around?” The Treasury secretary had no answer. So I told him he could not have my vote. It was a surreal moment: Many conservatives were now sounding like liberals; they couldn’t wait to see the government dish out money to save Fannies—and Freddies. It seemed that weekend after weekend, back in 2008, the Treasury secretary and the Federal Reserve chairman made unprecedented loans to private businesses at never-before-seen levels of government intervention in the private marketplace. The problem, I learned, was the Federal Reserve’s enabling legislation, which was so broadly written that the Fed had the power to do nearly anything it wanted. Never before had the Fed exercised this latent ability, but now it did it with breathtaking speed and with blind faith in its ability to run the economy. Bad decisions, bad precedents, indeed.

  The Bush administration, which had always professed faith in the free-market system, was now reversing its course; it was embracing a kind of “bailout socialism.” And Obama too supported TARP, because he and many liberals were delighted to enshrine the idea that Uncle Sam could, and should, be the lender, or bail-outer, of last resort. The only problem is, now Uncle Sam was the lender of first resort. Using our money, of course.

  Yet it was painful to find out that John McCain too favored the TARP bailout. In other words, McCain had joined the bailout mantra at exactly the wrong time, and all Americans were watching. Here was no “maverick” moment. The same disappointing stance was taken by the Republican leadership in the House. John Boehner went on national television to label TARP a “crap sandwich”—and then, in the next breath, he said we should vote for it anyway.

  I knew there was no way I could vote for it, because I couldn’t find authority for it in the Constitution. I simply couldn’t support it. So I voted no. That’s where I stood, and that’s where I stand. As a constitutional conservative, I put principle over party.

  Meanwhile, even after the bailout, the economy continued to decline—an indicator, of course, that government spending binges simply don’t work. And so as September slid into October, the McCain-Palin ticket drifted behind in the polls. The leadership of both parties had united around TARP, and yet the economic tumble had occurred, unfortunately, on Republican-appointed Hank Paulson’s watch. So the American people were thinking: Why not throw Paulson and his party out of the Treasury Department—and out of the White House? I believe that had McCain opposed the bailout—if he had made a clean break, opposing Paulson and standing for principle at that crucial moment—he could have changed the 2008 election.

  Disappointed as I was by the bailout fiasco, I hoped that somehow the GOP could pull it off. My desire to pitch in and help their campaign increase
d. Little did I know that I would soon be getting much the same media treatment myself.

  I did work as a Team McCain “surrogate speaker”; I was delighted to do my part. I had much to say about the stark choice that Americans were facing in 2008. Yet in speaking out I nearly lost my own seat.

  In the House, of course, we have to run for election every two years, and so my name was on the ballot that year, too. My Democratic opponent was a former mayor and state transportation commissioner. He was an experienced politician, and 2008 was shaping up nationwide to be another good Democratic year. Yet I had worked hard for my district, and I figured I was in good shape to win reelection.

  But my campaign optimism took a sharp detour just three weeks before the election, on October 17, 2008. I was at home in Minnesota when the McCain-Palin communications office called and asked if I would appear on MSNBC’s Hardball, a program hosted in Washington by Chris Matthews. Even though I had already done three shows that day, I was pleased to help out. I said yes, even though I had never appeared on MSNBC before, nor had I ever watched the Matthews show. I was heading back to my district when I got the call; it meant I would turn around and go back to a local TV studio in St. Paul. Yet there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years: It’s always challenging to do television by “remote.” That is, if you’re sitting in one studio and the host is sitting in another studio, it’s hard to gauge exactly what’s going on. For example, if I was a guest, the host could see me, but I couldn’t see the host; there’s no two-way camera in such a situation—just me staring into the dark eye of a one-way camera. In addition, depending on the quality of the audio connection, there’s usually a bit of delay in the sound, so when the host asks a question, I have to wait for a moment, staring into dark glass, before I can hear the question and respond to it. Television is a marvelous medium. But that evening, as I sat down in St. Paul to do the segment with Matthews a thousand miles to the east, my own campaign was about to change.