Michele Bachmann's swift rise and bruising fall tracked the fortunes of the Tea Party movement she helped inspire. The Minnesota Republican, who announced May 29 that she will not seek a fifth congressional term in 2014, was an indifferent legislator but a gifted provocateur. Bachmann's attacks against Barack Obama made her a cable-news celebrity, a fundraising powerhouse and, briefly, an insurgent contender in the 2012 GOP presidential-primary race. But her penchant for incendiary rhetoric alienated fellow Republicans and incensed Democrats--though it helped keep the political-fact-checking industry afloat.
Bachmann, 57, revealed her decision in a video message released in the middle of...
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