A conservative university professor and political scientist calls Michigan Congressman Thaddeus McCotter the “ultimate definition of a long shot” in the Republican presidential sweepstakes.Last November, McCotter — a strong fiscal conservative — was elected to his fifth consecutive term in Congress. He is also a strong supporter of Israel, having recently filed legislation calling for the de-funding of the U.N. if it unilaterally declares a Palestinian state. Now he has thrown his hat into the growing GOP presidential field, saying Washington needs “someone who knows the future is not big government — it is self-government.”
 
Dr. Charles W. Dunn, distinguished professor of government at Regent University’s Robertson School of Government, offers his take on the congressman’s chances. “He is the ultimate definition of a long shot,” states Dunn. “I don’t know that I’ve ever, in several decades of following presidential races, found someone more of a long shot than Thaddeus McCotter.”
 
The political observer says McCotter could become a factor for other candidates — including fellow member of Congress, Michelle Bachmann (R-Minnesota). “In a sense, he gives a boost to her candidacy, because he is such a long shot people are going to be commenting less about Michelle Bachman as a long shot — because she now has a great big head of steam in her candidacy.”
 
But Dunn says on the other hand, McCotter could cut into Bachmann’s support as well as that of other candidates.
 
Bachmann for ‘mom’
A political consultant and speechwriter says Republican presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann represents the “small-r” republican virtues that were fostered by the women of the founding era of the United States.
 
Sabrina Schaeffer, a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), recently wrote a column for National Review called “Bachmann as Republican Mother.” In the column she compared the Minnesota congresswoman to the women of the past who indirectly influenced the politics of the founding fathers.
 
“[They did that] by sort of guiding their husbands and their sons and teaching them about the relationship between citizenship and state — and especially the values of ‘small-r’ republicanism: public good, limited government, individual rights, and a lot of the ideas that we are trying to bring back today.
 
“And I suggest that Michelle Bachmann in some way is sort of a new republican mother,” Schaeffer continues. “She’s clearly very much directly involved in politics, but she’s advancing a political agenda…that resonates with our beginnings and our founding.”
 
The IWF fellow believes that in the year of the “big-R” Republican woman, Michelle Bachmann just might be its matriarch.