Michele Bachmann: Obama Won Because He's Black and America Felt Guilty

 

—By Patrick Caldwell

| Thu Feb. 20, 2014 11:17 AM GMT

Glen Stubbe/ZUMA

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is on her last tour in Congress. She's not seeking reelection and will leave the House after 2014. (A plum cable news gig is almost assuredly waiting for her once she reenters the private sector.) In the meantime, she's sticking to her usual habits: making offensive statements. In an interview published Wednesday, Bachmann said that Barack Obama won the presidency because white people felt too guilty about past racial injustices. "I think there was a cachet about having an African-American president because of guilt," she said in an interview with Cal Thomas, a syndicated conservative columnist.
Bachmann didn't stop there. She thinks Hillary Clinton has poor odds of winning the presidency in 2016. "People don't hold guilt for a woman," she said, explaining that much of the country isn't prepared to elect a women as president. "I don’t think there is a pent-up desire."
It's an odd view for Bachmann to hold. After all, she herself tried to become the first female president when she ran for the GOP's 2012 presidential nomination, and she briefly led the polls in Iowa before her campaign cratered, forcing her to drop out the morning after the Iowa caucuses. But these new doubts about the public's willingness to vote for a woman to be president could be a projection based on that sour experience. A poll from last month found that 77 percent of voters expect the country to elect a female president within the next decade. Americans are ready for a female president, just not Bachmann.