Monday, August 15, 2011

Short Bus Tour Day #7: Waterloo, Iowa

I have seen political theatre in my time, but what I witnessed from Michele and Dr. Bachmann in Waterloo, Iowa may have been the most amazing thing I have ever seen. They were a few minutes late in arriving and the crow was growing antsy. The band had been warming them up with a selection of country hits for the Lee Greenwood crowd, when suddenly everybody saw the Bachmann's bus pull up and the crowd let out a mighty roar, followed by...nothing.

Suddenly, the bad begins playing a riff and Michele Bachmann exits the bus smiling and waving at the crowd. She is wearing this ridiculously short white dress that looks very unacceptable for the campaign trail. Then we see another woman with long blonde hair rush out of the bus behind her. Except, this was no woman, but rather Michele's husband Dr. Marcus Bachmann. Suddenly, the riff that the band has been playing becomes obvious as the band shifts into playing Waterloo by Abba to thunderous applause.

For the next 4 minutes Michele and Dr. Bachmann gave the kind of magical performance that I had only previously seen from Ronald Reagan. They not only knew all the words to the song, they knew all the dance moves and they were in key. It was like stepping back in time to the 70s and seeing the real Abba perform and the audience just ate it up. When Michele began talking about conservative family values she already had the crowd eating out of the palm of her hand. I was just glad I didn't have to go on after her.

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