Minnesota Republicans opened up about their experiences with presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann in a Thursday article written by Shira Toeplitz of Roll Call. Several sources cited unpleasant experiences with Bachmann during her time as a state senator from 2001 to 2007.
“Michele Bachmann is the most dishonest, most deceitful person I’ve ever met in my life,” said Gary Laidig, the Republican state senator who Bachmann defeated in a party convention.
Laidig said that Bachmann had agreed not to challenge him, only to break her word. “She truly is a girl scout with a switchblade knife,” he said. “I survived a year in Vietnam, and then I get ambushed on the streets of my own town.”
The feelings of betrayal from Bachmann’s day-of candidacy haven’t softened for Laidig. “If this is my reward for 28 years of serving, working with people I hated privately but were Republicans anyway, I couldn’t believe it,” he grumbled.
Another former state senator contacted by Roll Call recounted Bachmann’s flippant reaction to an orientation program for newly-elected members.
“Michele came once and said she didn’t need it. She didn’t want to be part of it,” former Republican state Sen. Sheila Kiscaden told Roll Call. “I wouldn’t say I worked with her, because she already made a decision in her mind that I was too moderate for her.” Kiscaden later switched parties.
Kiscaden said that Bachmann prioritized agitating over doing work. “Our impression of her was that she didn’t really do the policy work of being a state Senator, she did the bare minimum,” her former colleague said. “She used the office for organizing.”
Slighted politicians weren’t the only ones with unflattering memories to offer. (RELATED: Stress-related condition ‘incapacitates’ Bachmann; heavy pill use alleged)
Roll Call recounted stories popular with Minnesota journalists, including one about the then-state senator hiding behind bushes to snoop on a pro-same-sex mariage rally in 2005. She reportedly told the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “I had high heels on and I just couldn’t stand anymore.”
Bachmann also reportedly made a scene at a 2005 town hall meeting, when she “emerged screaming from the women’s restroom, accusing two women of holding her there against her will.” Roll Call noted the Bachmann “filed a police report documenting the incident, but the couple claim they followed her to ask her a question.”
The lengthy piece also probes Bachmann’s relationship with former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a rival for the Republican presidential nomination. Bachmann was the lone Republican vote against Pawlenty’s signature JOBZ bill.
The former minority leader of the Minnesota House of Representative, Marty Seifert, said that the disagreement on JOBZ “gave Pawlenty a little bit of angst that she questioned one of his top initiatives that year.”
Seifert said that Bachmann “thought it was horrible policy, I remember the discussion well. She was the only Republican in the entire [Senate] caucus to vote no.”