Although she won the Iowa straw poll, Michele Bachmann has announced that she will “suspend her campaign” to become president of the US after a poor performance in the Iowa caucus. She finished last of the six candidates who seriously competed in the caucus. Despite previously indicating she’d stay in the race even if she didn’t win in Iowa, she has withdrawn, saying:
Last night, the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice, and so I have decided to stand aside.
In her statement, she did not endorse any remaining candidate, but reiterated her criticism of Barack Obama and his healthcare programme, saying (in a sentence bound to amuse those of us with any sense of the definition of “socialism”):
I will continue to fight to defeat the president’s agenda of socialism.
Bachmann’s withdrawal is no surprise. Her campaign — after an initial burst of success — was quickly marred by a series of gaffes and a flimsy grasp of the facts.
Back in May, Matt Taibbi wrote a profile of Bachmann for Rolling Stone, in which he summed up the reasons why he thought she might just win:
Bachmann is exactly the right kind of completely batshit crazy. Not medically crazy, not talking-to-herself-on-the-subway crazy, but grandiose crazy, late-stage Kim Jong-Il crazy — crazy in the sense that she’s living completely inside her own mind, frenetically pacing the hallways of a vast sand castle she’s built in there, unable to meaningfully communicate with the human beings on the other side of the moat, who are all presumed to be enemies.
Republicans can be grateful she is no longer in the running — although her selection may have been a blessing for Obama.
UPDATE: Rick Perry has tweeted that he will be staying in the contest: “And the next leg of the marathon is the Palmetto State…Here we come South Carolina!!!”