Assuming Palin isn't running, Chait talks up Michele Bachmann:
[W]hile Bachmann may be even crazier than Palin on questions of public policy, she seems to manage to hold things together as a candidate. She can answer questions from the news media. She is putting together a professional campaign rather than relying on amateur advisors. She takes care to point out frequently that she is a former tax lawyer, and she does not engage in Palin's visceral anti-intellectualism, giving herself the aura of a plausible president, at least in the minds of Republican voters. Bachmann may well combine Palin's most powerful traits without her crippling organizational failures.
I've heard surprisingly flattering reviews of Bachmann from a few Villagers lately – related to her sincerity and her smarts and her admirable fostering of so many children. But if being an anti-anti-intellectual still means a belief that New Hampshire is where the American Revolution took off, then the standard is set pretty low. And then there are those wide staring eyes.
The Dish 