By Karl Bremer
According to Michele Bachmann’s official biography from the GOP, after Jimmy Carter was inaugurated in 1977, she and her then-boyfriend Marcus, who both worked on Carter’s campaign, went to see a Christian documentary, “How Should We Then Live?” That inspired the couple to begin praying outside abortion clinics and haranguing clients as they went in. Or so the party-line story goes.
But according to the Winona Daily News, Michele Amble, which was Bachmann’s name when she attended Winona State University in 1977, was leading a far less pious crusade during that same time: the fight to bring alcohol onto campus. In fact, the young rebel Michele Amble led the charge all the way to the governor’s office, where she demanded the right to slam a few back in her dorm room.
After meeting with Governor Rudy Perpich to urge his support for a bill that would allow individual campuses to regulate the possession of liquor in dormitories, Perpich urged the students to return a week later, the Winona Daily News reported in an Associated Press wire story April 13, 1977.
The students returned, and the governor took them on a tour of Twin Town Treatment Center in St. Paul, where a number of young alcoholics encouraged the students to forget about boozing in their dorm rooms.
“After the tour,” the AP report continued, “the students argued with the Governor that liquor is already in dorm rooms and ought to be legalized.
"Michele Amble, a Winona State University junior and leader of the student group, told Perpich, “The University of Minnesota and six private colleges allow liquor on campus. And there have been no problems because of it.””
How did Bachmann’s handlers overlook this important milestone in our congresswoman’s political career? Evidently “liquor lobbyist” doesn’t fit into Michele’s quaint little born-again-conservative bio as neatly as “abortion protester.”
As a sidenote, the National Beer Wholesalers Association poured a cool $10,000 into Bachmann’s election campaign in the 2005-2006 election cycle and $5,000 to date in the 2007-2008 election cycle. And Bachmann has tapped the Anheuser-Busch Political Action Committee for another $3,000 in the 2007-2008 cycle. What goes around, comes around.
Karl Bremer is a Stillwater writer and constituent of Bachmann’s. |
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