Don’t write off brassy Bachmann and the Tea Party

When Ashley Judd announced on Wednesday that she had decided not to run for Mitch McConnell’s Senate seat in Kentucky, national Democrats quickly made clear that they remain serious about taking on the five-term lawmaker. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee launched a small anti-McConnell radio ad buy the next morning.

U.S. representative Michele Bachmann said on Thursday that Obamacare “literally” kills women, children and senior citizens. The controversial congresswoman made the speech on the floor of the House of Representatives on the third anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare.” It is unclear what exactly Bachmann is referring to in the bill when she says that it is literally killing people.

Michele Bachmann, a favorite of the staunchly conservative Tea Party movement, launched her bid for the Republican presidential nomination Monday with a swing through three key primary states.Bachmann, boosted at the weekend by a poll showing her virtually tied with party frontrunner Mitt Romney in the key state of Iowa, was to kick off her campaign here at 9:00 am (1400 GMT) with a formal announcement before a few hundred supporters in her hometown of Waterloo

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul will call on his party to embrace immigration reform in his Tea Party rebuttal to President Barack Obama's State of the Union Tuesday, a surprising message for the libertarian firebrand. 

[AP ] - The rising profiles of Republican presidential candidates Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are giving the White House a new opening: linking the entire GOP field to the tea party, whose popularity has recently sagged.