Self-proclaimed tea party leader Michele Bachmann's bid for a top Republican post in the House received a cool reaction Thursday from Speaker-to-be John Boehner, an early test of how GOP leaders will treat the antiestablishment movement's winners in Tuesday's elections.
"Constitutional conservatives deserve a loud and clear voice in leadership!" Bachmann, R-Minn., who founded the Tea Party Caucus, said in a one-paragraph Facebook announcement that she is running for GOP conference chairman.
House Republican leaders don't disagree. But that doesn't mean they want the hyperbolic Bachmann being a spokeswoman for the new majority during the 2012 election cycle.
Boehner, aware of the role tea partiers played in making him the next House speaker, is endorsing no one. His lieutenants are lining up behind Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, leaving no doubt that Hensarling - and not Bachmann - is the leadership favorite to chair the GOP conference.
"There are few who have done as much for the Republican team as Jeb," the expected House majority leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia, said in a statement.
National Politics | Bachmann bid for GOP leadership gets cool reaction
| Seattle Times Newspaper
This will come back to hurt the GOP. The "wildly uninformed" have spoken. A self-proclaimed leaderless movement deserves a self-proclaimed leader, that little bit of hypocrisy only took two days to manifest itself.
Welcome to Washington DC Tea Party and two years of self-loathing.
