Bachmann's in, the media slashing begins

Old and busted: Michele Bachmann brings a fresh face to the campaign. New and shiny: She’s just a Huckabee retread. Check out ABC’s framing and naming:

Bachmann, a conservative firebrand who represents the sixth Congressional district of Minnesota, is returning to Waterloo today to showcase her Iowa roots on the heels of a new Des Moines Register poll out this weekend that showed her running neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney among Republican voters in the state.

Has Obama, or any other liberal for that matter, gotten tagged a “firebrand” or anything similarly negative right out of the gate? Or in Obama’s case, ever?

Bachmann’s biggest hurdle will be to prove that she has appeal outside of the ideologically narrow Iowa Caucus electorate. She can’t afford to be pigeon-holed as “just another Mike Huckabee,” who won the 2008 Caucuses there largely due to his resonance with social conservative voters.

That “ideologically narrow” Iowa Caucus electorate also delivered victory to one Barack Obama, the same day Huckabee won there in 2008. Did Obama have to then prove that he had appeal outside that “narrow electorate,” which because it’s a caucus, isn’t actually an electorate anyway? And I love the line about Bachmann having to avoid being pigeon-holed as “just another Mike Huckabee.” Who beyond the punditocracy sees her as another Huck? And in order  to be as helpful as possible, ABC puts the Huckabee comparison — which no one else is making —  right in the headline, front and center which signals: She’s flashy now and may win Iowa, but will ultimately lose.

Maybe she will, maybe she won’t, but it’s obvious that some in the media are already trying to handicap Michele Bachmann right out of the race, win or lose in Iowa.