Michele Bachmann, Tea Party Presidential Hopeful, Coming to Hostile Territory This Summer: Los Angeles

Bachmann is heading to L.A.

Nutcase Congresswoman and right-wing Quixote presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann will come to the land of sunshine, sin and sexual liberation (that's here) Sept. 16 for the California Republican Party Fall Convention downtown (which is actually happening in summer -- but, hey, the GOP has never been good with the calendar).

She's a righteous right-winger and Tea Party denizen who has suggested President Obama (educated right here in L.A.) is a socialist and that he might have anti-American views.

Bachmann is a vestige of middle Americanism many of us on the left coast might not recognize anymore, which brings us to the question:

Is she sure she wants to come here? L.A. is pretty much everything Bachmann hates about America: A land of gay rights, immigrants, rent control, liberal media, strong unions, Spanish speakers, Toyota Priuses, tofu, and Ed Begley, Jr.

We produce porn, smoke weed legally, bitch about tax loopholes for billionaires, think Obama's a rock star, eat organic, take our dogs to spas, tap our toes in bathroom stalls out in the open, and consider Tom Hayden to be a hero.

Bachmann is a champion of the angry white voter besieged by the brown wave from Mexico, miffed about having to bow to a black president, and, ironically, entitled to the American dream, yet bent on cutting entitlements (discuss).

Liberals aren't perfect. They spent too much, bitch about those who don't march in lockstep, and don't take enough showers. (It's true). And Bachmann has her people. That's fine. This is America.

"I know her pure energy, vibrancy and leadership will be a hit with our delegates," states California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro. "This is a great opportunity for us to hear directly from one of the Republican Party's leading presidential candidates."

Leading? The best thing about Bachmann for many a liberal Angeleno is the fact that she's a major factor in the widely held notion that the field of GOP presidential hopefuls is turning into one big SNL skit.

But hey, at least this nutter -- see her laughably disingenuous State of the Union response -- makes Sarah Palin look like a Rhodes Scholar. Her response to Obama's call for a "balanced" approach to raising the federal deficit debt ceiling (lest our economy collapse next week) was beyond even what Republican House Speaker John Boehner is asking for (a temporary ceiling lift):

[Obama is] operating from the wrong assumption -- that we need to increase the debt limit to pay for increased spending. Despite what President Obama says, the people of this country understand what raising the debt limit means. It's the President who doesn't grasp the magnitude of our national debt; he compares it to 'a little credit card debt' when, in fact, our 'national credit cards' are maxed out.

Huh? You mean to say, Michelle, that it would better to plunge this country into financial chaos than to raise the ceiling? Because no amount of cutting will prevent default come next week. Because your friends on Wall Street, many of them rich GOPers, benefited from a very necessary federal bailout (yeah, you didn't support it), it's not entirely honest to put all of this deficit on Obama. Remember: There was a man named Bush, a sub-prime mortgage implosion, and a country on the precipice of the Great Depression, Part 2.

And if your friends in Congress don't come to a compromise on the debt limit, that Great Depression Part 2 is still a very real possibility, given our slow crawl out of the economic doldrums.

And so, may we suggest that maybe she won't receive the warmest reception here, where unemployment is unusually high?

It's surprising to see that the convention will be held at the JW Marriott at LA Live, where the complex's owner, Anschutz Entertainment Group, has been lobbying the very liberal L.A. City Council for a good deal on its proposed stadium next door. (It's promising much-needed jobs to our liberal unions).

There are a lot of poor, brown people within walking distance of the hotel, Michelle. Americans? Sure. But not your people. L.A. is a different America.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]