Back on April 15, 2009 I attended one the original TEA 'Taxed Enough Already' Parties and helped with a lot of general organizing, as did a lot of fiscally conservative republicans. Less than a year later I had to put up with latecomers who rebutted my general arguments or suggestions with how establishment I was. Each individual group had its own package of beliefs and claimed to speak for the Tea Party even when it was a dozen guys holding meetings in a county of a hundred thousand with maybe ~20,000 TEA sympathizers who'd never met them, elected them, or even knew they existed.

Bachmann is basically from that phase of things. The group that simply asserted that they spoke for the TEA party on the grounds that they were very good at getting the media to film them saying so. About the only thing various TEA groups and very nebulous Tea Party sympathizers agree on is taxes shouldn't be raised, which is at least appropriate since it was originally about people being taxed enough already. A lot the various factions represent the people who opposes taxes increases about as well as PETA represents people who are for the ethical treatment of animals.

I'm all for grassroots stuff, but people need to learn that you either pick a single issue, form a group devoted to that issue to help push that agenda exclusively, or design a complete platform, get yourself official status as a party, and have your party leadership actually elected. Otherwise you will be annexed by a handful of charismatic and very loud persons and then sold for a seat at the grown ups' table.

Bluntly put, Bachmann was one of those persons, and she made it clear she wanted to buy in but never felt she was offered a high enough price, and she got marginalized because she kept asking too much while her value diminished.