Bachmann: Obama-clobbered youth are tea party's future

WASHINGTON – The establishment media has virtually written the obituary of the tea party, but Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., is bullish about the influence of the grass-roots movement.

"I think were going to see a brand-new generation of young conservatives," Bachmann predicted to WND Wednesday after delivering a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on how the tea party has shaken up modern political debate.

Bachmann said the media have never understood the tea party was not a political party but a reawakening of fundamental American values. Not new ideas, she said, but the same profound values as espoused in the American Revolution and a desire for limited government expressed in the sentiment, "Don't tread on me."

She sees young people, with their love of liberty and freedom, as well as their fierce streak of independence, as the tea party's natural constituency.

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And she thinks they've received an education in the importance of those values from none other than the president.

"They've been under the tutelage of professor Barack Obama who taught them what not to do in governing a country, and now I think we see the opportunity for a whole new movement," said the founder and chairwoman of the House tea party caucus.

WND noted the audience for her speech was filled with young people and asked if she found the tea party message resonated with younger voters.

"Absolutely," she said, "because this is about their future and their choices. That's one thing that's very important to young people. They want to know they have the choice, they're in charge," she said.

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"They're all about embracing their future. And that's what the tea party stands for."

Bachmann didn't think younger voters would necessarily keep lock-step with big-spending liberals, especially once they saw the consequences, particularly the mammoth national debt.

"It's their generation that's going to have to pay the bill. I think they get that."

The congresswoman also thinks tea party values will appeal to younger peoples' basic sense of fairness and justice.

"(One of the) things that really offends them is that government isn't even following the rules itself. And that's what we believe, the government should have to follow the Constitution."

She also saw the tea party as appealing to young people's libertarian sensibilities.

"They want maximum freedom, and I'm with them. So, yeah, I think this message really resonates with young people," she said.

Asked about critics who accuse the tea party of backing unelectable candidates from the fringe, Bachmann pointed out conservatives' message of smaller government and greater liberty has already been co-opted by the powers that be.

"The establishment wing of the Republican party also has embraced these ideas, because they see that they electrify the American people."

She explained how that is playing out in the current midterm elections, with the president's policies exemplifying the opposite of tea party values.

"Right now, all we see around us in the United States is failure. Failure of all of President Obama's big government ideas. In fact, it's so unpalatable, that Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate don't want Obama anywhere near their campaigns, because it isn't just him, it's really his ideas that are so widely unpopular," she said.

"And the president had said not long ago that it was his policies that will be on the ballot this fall. Well that's what everybody (Democrats) is afraid of! That his policies are on the ballot. We say yes, we want his policies on the ballot."

And what about her future? She is retiring from Congress after representing Minnesota's sixth district since Jan. 3, 2007. Can the conservative champion envision running for office again?

"No one ever says never, but I don't have a plan to do that. What I do plan to do, however, is take my experiences and my voice, take the ideas that have worked so well here in Washington, D.C., and espouse those."

"I want to take American greatness and American values nationally and talk to young people all across this country about what we can do to re-publish these great ideas," she concluded with characteristic enthusiasm and optimism.

One person who heard her speech was overheard asking if it was Bachmann's "Farewell to Washington."

His companion replied, "I think it was her 'I'm not going anywhere speech.'"