There's an old adage that there are two kinds of legislators, "work horses" and "show horses," those who get things done, and those who give speeches and preen for the camera. It's not really as simple as that -- there are some who do both and plenty who do neither. But the division is certainly there, and in the GOP, it's going to get starker. There are a couple of reasons why. First of all, we've got an incoming crop of people who got elected without any legislative experience, who have shown no particular interest in legislating, and who are intensely ideological. That's not true of all of them, but it is true of many. For instance, what kind of a senator do you think Rand Paul is going to be? Is he going to be burning the midnight oil to write complex bills to attempt to solve vexing problems facing the country, working quietly behind the scenes to assemble coalitions to pass serious legislation? I wouldn't hold your breath. And second, the show horses in demand right now from the media are precisely those who are the most doctrinaire. Take someone like Michele Bachmann. When she got to Congress, she decided to pursue a show-horse strategy to maximize her influence. Instead of worrying about committee positions and building alliances to work her way up the leadership ladder, she became the person who was willing to go on television and say crazy, crazy things guaranteed to drive liberals nuts, thereby getting her attention from people like Keith Olbermann, thereby getting her more bookings on Fox, which continues the cycle. And it has worked out great for her -- not only is she nationally known despite having virtually no institutional power, in her election this year she raised a staggering $11 million, more than any other House candidate in the country.And now, Bachmann has looked at the landscape and determined that there's no time like the present to make a move from the outside to the inside -- she's running for the position of GOP Caucus chair and is starting a "Constitutional Conservative Caucus" to go with the Tea Party Caucus she started last year. She no doubt realizes that all these new members have no particular loyalty to the existing Republican leadership and are her kind of folks to boot. So she's trying to build her own army. The question is whether she can really be effective in an inside role. There's a reason glad-handers and back-slappers like John Boehner are so often the ones who wind up in leadership positions -- they may not be the ones whom Chris Matthews can't wait to get on his show, but they have the skills necessary to build alliances, hold wavering members together, and think enough steps ahead to maintain their strategic position. Can someone like Bachmann, who built her career by a series of cable TV appearances, exercise those skills? It's possible, but I doubt it. -- Paul Waldman Michele Bachmann Will Drink Your Milkshake.
There's an old adage that there are two kinds of legislators, "work horses" and "show horses," those who get things done, and those who give speeches and preen for the camera. It's not really as simple as that -- there are some who do both and plenty who do neither. But the division is certainly there, and in the GOP, it's going to get starker. There are a couple of reasons why. First of all, we've got an incoming crop of people who got elected without any legislative experience, who have shown no particular interest in legislating, and who are intensely ideological. That's not true of all of them, but it is true of many. For instance, what kind of a senator do you think Rand Paul is going to be? Is he going to be burning the midnight oil to write complex bills to attempt to solve vexing problems facing the country, working quietly behind the scenes to assemble coalitions to pass serious legislation? I wouldn't hold your breath. And second, the show horses in demand right now from the media are precisely those who are the most doctrinaire. Take someone like Michele Bachmann. When she got to Congress, she decided to pursue a show-horse strategy to maximize her influence. Instead of worrying about committee positions and building alliances to work her way up the leadership ladder, she became the person who was willing to go on television and say crazy, crazy things guaranteed to drive liberals nuts, thereby getting her attention from people like Keith Olbermann, thereby getting her more bookings on Fox, which continues the cycle. And it has worked out great for her -- not only is she nationally known despite having virtually no institutional power, in her election this year she raised a staggering $11 million, more than any other House candidate in the country.And now, Bachmann has looked at the landscape and determined that there's no time like the present to make a move from the outside to the inside -- she's running for the position of GOP Caucus chair and is starting a "Constitutional Conservative Caucus" to go with the Tea Party Caucus she started last year. She no doubt realizes that all these new members have no particular loyalty to the existing Republican leadership and are her kind of folks to boot. So she's trying to build her own army. The question is whether she can really be effective in an inside role. There's a reason glad-handers and back-slappers like John Boehner are so often the ones who wind up in leadership positions -- they may not be the ones whom Chris Matthews can't wait to get on his show, but they have the skills necessary to build alliances, hold wavering members together, and think enough steps ahead to maintain their strategic position. Can someone like Bachmann, who built her career by a series of cable TV appearances, exercise those skills? It's possible, but I doubt it. -- Paul Waldman 
