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Michele Bachmann Says Goodbye To Congress – Looks To Focus On 2016 Presidential Campaign

By Scott Falkner
Published on: 01:59 PST, Dec 10, 2014

Four terms is enough. Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is saying goodbye to Congress after four terms, but she’s not saying goodbye to politics altogether.

In May, 2013, Bachmann announced her intention to leave her position.

“The law limits anyone from serving as president of the United States for more than eight years, and in my opinion, well, eight years is also long enough for an individual to serve as a representative for a specific Congressional district.”

Michele vacates her post just as the Republicans have taken control of Congress for the first time since she was originally elected.

Though Michele is leaving Congress, she made it clear that she intends to play a pivotal role in the 2016 election.

“I occupy a very unique space. I am the only woman who has been in presidential debates on the Republican ticket.”

Here’s the video of Michele Bachmann’s farewell speech to Congress.

Though it may seem in the video as if Michele Bachmann was speaking to the whole of Congress, New York Magazine reports that her final address was given to a mostly empty chamber.

Bachmann’s Congressional career has been highlighted by fights with not only Democrats and the left, but her own party. She also was known for a meteoric presidential campaign that burned out almost as brightly as it began.

Michele told The Associated Press that she thought she’d avoided the Washington Machine while she was in Congress.

“I didn’t get sucked into the system of Washington. I didn’t become a politician. I was a constitutional conservative.”

During her stint in D.C., Bachmann remained a bastion of her own brand of conservatism on issues ranging from health care to immigration to gay marriage. She was picked to deliver the “tea party response” to President Obama’s State of the Union address in 2011.

Michele Bachmann hit the left as hard as she could on numerous occasions. In 2008 she said that Barack Obama “may have anti-American views.” That comment threw her into a spotlight that led to a torrent of donations being given to her opponent in Minnesota. Michele surprisingly held out, however, winning a three-point victory in one of Minnesota’s most conservative congressional districts.

In recent years, Michele Bachmann hasn’t let up on the president, saying that Obama’s policies put the United States on the “path to Marxism.”

Democrats had a hard time deciding whether to be outraged or just chagrined by many of Michele Bachmann’s comments and viewpoints while she was in Congress, when, according to The Huffington Post even some of Bachmann’s former staff members say her comments often “stretched the truth” or were outright false. When Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi was once asked about Michele Bachmann’s response to a Supreme Court ruling that allowed gay marriages to go forward in several states, Pelosi reportedly said, “Who cares?”

As polarizing as the Congresswoman was while serving, Twitter on the whole didn’t exactly give Bachmann a rousing sendoff.

Bachmann looks ahead now to the next presidential election. Hillary Rodham Clinton being the prime candidate possibility for Democrats, Michele says that the voices of Republican women will be more important than ever. When asked if she herself would be running for president, Michele Bachmann said she has “no intention right now,” but that she also won’t rule it out.

What do you think about Michele Bachmann’s time in Congress? Was she the tea party joke the left made her out to be, or was she an important conservative voice in the United States Congress?

[Image via The New Civil Rights Movement]

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