This week's political gab fest will be posting Friday afternoon, so here's another piece of political analysis for you while you wait.

It's by Slate's David Weigel, and it's called Bachman Overdrive, Michelle Bachman for president.

Among Republicans, she's more popular than you think.

Polster and political guru Frank Luntz flew to Iowa last month to conduct a survey for Fox News.

26 Republicans, likely to vote in the next caucuses, were shown video clips of 11 politicians who might run for president.

They twisted dials scored from 0 to 100 to rate the candidates.

One of the clear winners was Minnesota

Representative Michelle Bachman. There's a strong message that the people want us to hear,

said Bachman on video. Number one, it is get rid of the big spending, which leads to big deficits,

which kills jobs. And then number two, we don't want the federal government to control private industry

or own private industry. The Iowans couldn't twist their dials fast enough. She hit 90 at the end,

said Sean Hannity. Those are solid numbers for anybody. Luntz explained that the voters like

Bachman's talk about business and constitutional principles.

Sarah Palin came in with significant support, said Luntz, but after these voters watched Michelle

Bachman, Palin's numbers came way down, and Michelle Bachman's numbers shot up.

The focus group pruned the field. Mitt Romney was dumped early, as was Mitch Daniels, boring, as was John Thune. This was

before he withdrew from the race. They dumped Palin, but kept Bachman because they thought

that she was more direct and less polarizing, Lunt said. Bachman was their third choice right after

Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich. The moral of the story, don't write off

Michelle Bachman. Oh, the temptation is there. After CNN broke the news that the third-term

representative was taking steps toward a presidential bid, Republican strategist Mike Murphy assured

Time magazine readers that she was a kook. As I tweeted a few weeks ago,

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