Cut Bachmann Some Slack: At Least She Hasn't Sold Out

Presidential Candidate Michele Bachmann has been turning heads for all the wrong reasons. Consistently polarizing, Rep. Bachmann (R-MN) has sparked controversy early into her campaign, and her record is a good indicator of what President Bachmann's policies would look like.

She has already signed the marriage pact -- a tasteless document that condemns gay marriage and implies that African Americans were better off as slaves. No other serious candidates are going to sign it.

Bachmann is deeply -- and some could argue fanatically -- religious, a fact she has not tried to hide. She found Jesus as a teenager, and her whole political career thus far has been rooted in her conceived morality. Bachmann signed the marriage pact because she believed in what it said, not to get more votes. She is a congresswoman who has supporters in the Republican base; surely someone could have stopped her if she let them.

And even now that she has come under intense media scrutenty for signing the document, she is refusing to back down.

No matter how extreme Bachmann's ideas and ideals are, at least she sticks to her guns. Give her credit for that. This is a refreshing change to politics as usual.

Former governor Mitt Romney is on the trail claiming that the Massachusetts health plan he established is nothing like Obamacare. Others candidates are condemning gay marriage or trying to outlaw abortion; not because they believe in it, but because they want to win the primary votes still very much up-for-grabs.

The 2000 presidential candidte John McCain looked much different from the 2008 John McCain, and not because of he aged by eight years. Democrats do the same thing, of course, and it eventually caught up to John Kerry in 2004.

While some things Rep. Bachmann says, like using the term job creator instead of business owner, are clear panders to a naive voter base, unlike other Republicans Bachmann seems to whole heatedly believe it to be true. So her husband's clinic only employs a handful of people who would be employable elsewhere (and therefore not actually lowered the number of unemployed). She's a job creator, and she can do it for again for America.

Politicians, and recently it seems Republicans especially, constantly flip-flop so as to appeal to a broader public (a public that is interestingly becoming more religious). Doesn't America deserve someone who stands by what they believe in?

Of course, this has potential to go too far. Certainly having a Nietzschean Übermensch ruling over us serfs wouldn't be great. As another journalist at IBTimes was happy to point out, Hitler stood by what he believed in, too.

But nonetheless, more politicians should take this one page from Bachmann's handbook. If candidates did what Bachmann is doing, and stopped sinking to the lowest common denominator, it would make for a richer election season and the American public might actually be able to get the change it deserves.And maybe religion would finally be erased from politics (but probably not).