Bachmann: Dems Should Have Voted for Hillary Clinton in 2008
In her new book Core of Conviction, Michele Bachmann shares that she would have preferred Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nominee and possibly president if Rep. John McCain wasn’t in the mix.
Bachmann, the only female in the Republican 2012 race for the White House, gave a nod to the sole female candidate in the 2008 Democratic race for president in her new book.
“I could see that she seemed less leftist revolutionary than [Barack] Obama,” Bachmann wrote. “Did I prefer her, and not him, answering the proverbial 3:00 a.m. phone call? Actually I preferred John McCain to either of them, by a wide margin, but if he couldn’t be in the mix I would have wanted Mrs. Clinton.”
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Clinton, now the U.S. Secretary of State, has ascended to new popularity among Democrats and Republicans in the lead up to the 2012 race.
In a September interview with Fox News, former Vice President Dick Cheney also suggested that Clinton would have made a better president than Obama. When asked if she would perform better as president than President Obama, he stated, “Perhaps she might have been easier for some of us who are critics of the president to work with.”
Cheney expressed that he disagrees with the current president “on a great many issues” and said “It would be interesting to speculate about how she might perform were she to be president.”
A September survey showed many Americans have speculated the same thing and concluded that Clinton would have been a better president. The Bloomberg survey found that one in three Americans believed the United States would be better off if Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama, had been elected president.
Additionally, two-thirds of the population (64 percent of Americans) held a favorable view of the former first lady. Obama’s approval rating among Democrats and Republicans for September was only 45 percent, the lowest of his presidency.
Though many are feeling a sort of “buyer’s remorse” over the election, few Republicans (39 percent) actually believe that the country would have been better off with Clinton leading.
Rather, Republicans are hoping that Obama discontent will drive Democrats and independents to vote Republican in the upcoming general election.
During a Monday appearance on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” to discuss her book, Bachmann remained confident about her chances in the GOP nominee race. While playing the “One Word” game with Fallon, she told him the one word that comes to mind when she hears her name is “president.”
In the polls, the Minnesota congresswoman’s support has dropped significantly since the summer. Bachmann has 5 percent of support among Republicans in Gallup’s November polls. In a June poll, she tied front-runner Mitt Romney for 23 percent of Iowans’ support.
Bachmann also shared in her book that she first mentioned to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in the summer of 2008 that she could be a vice presidential candidate to McCain.
“She laughed at the thought: ‘Oh, that’s not going to happen,’” Bachmann wrote. Days later McCain asked Palin to run.
Bachmann also charged Obama with revealing in a closed-door meeting that he was not concerned with Medicare solvent.
