Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) got some tough love from one of her own late Thursday, as the president and executive director of a Tea Party organization urged her to end her bid for the White House.
“It’s time for Michele Bachmann to go,” wrote American Majority president Ned Ryun in a statement obtained by CNN.
American Majority Executive Director Matt Robbins told CNN he didn’t think Bachmann was a serious candidate, despite her meteoric rise to prominence early in the GOP primary season.
“I think it’s pretty obvious that Michele Bachmann is about Michele Bachmann,” said Robbins, calling the candidate a “back-bencher congressperson.”
Since launching her campaign for president, Bachmann has been absent from 37 percent of votes held in the House.
American Majority is not known as a top-tier Tea Party organization, but according to CNN, it operates across seven states. Some 371,000 people have “liked” the group’s page on Facebook.
Bachmann’s campaign peaked with the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa in August. But her performance has slumped in recent months. A CNN/Time Magazine survey ending Oct. 25 showed her polling at just six percent in what was once her strongest state.
In debates, Bachmann has struggled to remain relevant while the bulk of attention shifted to colorful spats between front-runner Mitt Romney and would-be insurgents Rick Perry and Herman Cain. While onstage in a CNN debate Oct. 11, Bachmann was widely mocked for this attempt to get moderator Anderson Cooper to intervene on her behalf.
Just this week, Bachmann’s entire New Hampshire campaign staff abruptly resigned over tensions with the national campaign team.
“The manner in which some in the national team conducted themselves towards Team-NH was rude, unprofessional, dishonest, and at times cruel,” the staffers wrote in a statement. “But more concerning was how abrasive, discourteous, and dismissive some within the national team were towards many New Hampshire citizens. These are our neighbors and our friends, and some within the national team treated them more as a nuisance than as potential supporters.”
Bachmann responded to the walk-outs with surprise. But if American Majority is any guide, what’s really surprising isn’t that her operation is coming apart — it’s that it’s still afloat at all.
