Michele Bachmann, a former Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota, told TV pastor Jim Bakker that she’s considering a run for Al Franken’s Senate seat and that she’s asking God about it.
God was not available for comment, at least to Bachmann, who implied she hadn’t gotten a clear go-ahead yet.
On Bakker’s show Tuesday, Bachmann — who ran for president in 2012 and was immortalized on the cover of Newsweek with a cover referred to as “Crazy Eyes” — said she has “had people contact me and urge me to run for that Senate seat” and that she was asking God if his Will would accommodate that. Bachmann said she would like to bring godly principles to the Senate but expressed trepidation about being attacked by Washington insiders, because “the swamp is so toxic.”
“I trust in a big God,” said Bachmann, adding that she “was supposed to run for president” in 2012 to repeal Obamacare. “I feel like I was wildly successful … I didn’t win, but I moved the debate. So I didn’t shed a tear when I left the contest because I felt like, you know, I fulfilled the calling that God gave me.”
“So the question is am I being called to do this now?” she added. “I don’t know.”
TV viewers didn’t know either, because Bachmann did not elaborate on what her platform would be.
Franken stepped down last month after several women accused him of sexual harassment before he was in office. Minnesota Governor Tim Smith appointed the state’s Lieutenant Governor, Tina Smith, to take the seat until November 2018, when a special election will be held to finish Franken’s term, which ends in 2021.
The founder of the conservative Tea Party caucus, Bachmann, 61, served in Congress from 2007 to 2015. In 2013, she was investigated by the House Ethics Committee, the Federal Election Commission, the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee, the Urbandale Police Department and FBI for campaign-finance violations during her 2012 run for president. She announced her retirement from Congress in May 2013, and the investigations were dropped.
