Illustration by Victor Juhasz for Rolling Stone

I know the common way of thinking today is that with this slate of GOP presidential hopefuls, Obama will win a second term quite handily.  Unfortunately, President Obama seems to be doing too much to make that likelihood a much longer shot than it should be.  The man who so many of us voted for in the hope that he’d be our generation’s FDR has instead decided to try to be everybody’s BFF.  And it’s not working!

Yesterday, Michele Bachmann officially announced her bid for the presidency.  Even though she claimed to embrace all four legs of a three-legged stool and mixed up John Wayne with John Wayne Gacy, the wing nuts still love her.  In fact, according to Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone’s “Michele Bachmann’s Holy War“, the way we educated elites point out her stupid mistakes and ridiculous take on American history only inspires the wing nuts in her bat shit corner to embrace her more whole-heartedly.

So now, Michele “the flake” Bachmann is considered a frontrunner for the GOP nomination!  Seriously!  The latest Iowa Caucus poll has Bachmann (at 22%) only one statistically insignificant point behind Mitt Romney (at 23%), and way ahead of the third place Herman Cain (at 10%).  Yikes.  That’s entering some seriously scary territory!

But way down there in last place with a very measly 2% is virtual unknown former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman.  But that’s the one I’m keeping my eyes on.

At this point in the 1992 elections, a former small state governor – Bill Clinton from Arkansas – was also unknown and considered a non-issue.  Watch out for the underdog….

This morning, I invited my friend Cliff Schecter to join me to discuss the guy who could come from nowhere to give Barack Obama a run for our money.  It was a spirited conversation that took place after I invited you to spend seven minutes watching an excerpt of Senator Bernie Sanders‘ brilliant speech yesterday from the Senate floor, in which he urged President Obama not to give in to GOP demands to cut essential services and programs for the most vulnerable Americans.  In case you missed it, please watch it now:

 

You can also watch the entire 90-minute speech here, but you get the idea. Now, go here and sign the letter to the president!

As we do each day at the top of the second hour, we get a news report from the Talk Radio News Service.  Today, it came from Ken Bazinet, who blogs at The Baz File.

And our second hour every Tuesday morning is spent with Gotta Laff from The Political Carnival.  Although we never have a shortage of stories to discuss, today we hit the mother lode:

VIDEO: Michele Bachmann’s presidential announcement included some laughably fuzzy math

VIDEO: Michele Bachmann confuses John Wayne (hero) with John Wayne Gacy (serial killer)

Video- FOX’s Chris Wallace to Michele Bachmann: “Are You a Flake?”

The news media “are missing the real [Michele Bachmann] story”

Michele Bachmann’s had her share of government aid + got a “sense” from God to run for office

Michele Bachmann, tax attorney… for the IRS

Michele Bachmann used House money for “press conference”. And by press conference, she meant 2009 tea party rally

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WI Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley: Justice Prosser “put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold.”

Plus Capitol Police turn over Wisconsin Supreme Court “choking” investigation to sheriff

VIDEO- Chris Christie: “This is who I am. I am not abrasive at all. I’m honest… The person who picks me as VP would have to be sedated.”

NY GOP legislator: If marriage equality becomes law, “we are going to have an HIV epidemic.” + his dog house line. OY!

Moment of Happy: New York wedding plans galore since marriage equality was legalized

Grover Norquist’s GOP Debate “Postponed”

Rick Perry’s joke bombs at Latino convention