Michele Bachmann Touts Glenn Beck Vote, Gets S.C. Tea Party Boost
Conservative television and radio star Glenn Beck said he plans to vote for Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) in the presidential primary contest.
“I am the candidate Glenn Beck trusts to lead America back to prosperity,” Bachmann told supporters in an email, raising money off his radio remarks from Tuesday. It’s not the first time Beck lauded the tea party darling — he said before her Ames straw poll win that he supports her candidacy.
Beck stressed he doesn’t actually endorse candidates but said he’s made a decision about who he’d vote for.
“It is somebody that I think believes it to the core. I believe understands compassion, somebody that understands God, somebody understands the situation that we’re in,” Beck said. “There is somebody I think that is exceptional and truly comes the closest to embodying the spirit of Lincoln or Washington in this field. And I believe that it is Michele Bachmann.”
Bachmann also announced South Carolina tea party co-chairmen as she seeks to build support in the early primary state.
Javan Browder, who served as national co-director of the Draft (Sen. Jim) DeMint movement, and Kelly Payne, a schoolteacher and Richland County Republican activist, are heading up Bachmann’s tea party coalition. The Bachmann campaign also announced a group of 37 state tea party activists who have publicly endorsed Bachmann.
“Michele Bachmann is the only candidate who has been both conservative and consistent,” Browder said in a statement. “Unlike Newt Gingrich and some of the other candidates, Congresswoman Bachmann hasn’t played the Washington-insider games to pad her own pocket.”