Ames Straw Poll Winner Michele Bachmann: What She Really Means

Representative Michele Bachmann believes her victory in the Iowa Straw Poll on Saturday sends a message to President Obama that the American people are looking for change.

Could it be that she won only because voters had few other options for a solid candidate? The poll was taken by only a small sampling of voters, and it's not a reliable indicator of who will win the state's presidential caucuses in February.

Shortly after Rep. Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll, she met with CNN to discuss her values and core principles, as well as what she plans to do if she is elected president of the United States.

Many of Bachmann's supporters are taking her words at face value, and not listening to what she really means.

Bachmann said, "the public doesn't favor a compromise between spending cuts and raising revenues through taxes increases as a method of battling the deficit."

That is correct; however, what most people don't want is to continue giving the wealthy and big corporations all the tax breaks while the middle class and poor continue to suffer.

She says in her perfect world, "We'd take the 35 percent corporate tax rate down to nine so that we're the most competitive in the industrialized world. Zero out capital gains. Zero out the alternative minimum tax. Zero out the death tax. "

The American people want jobs so they can afford to eat and have a place to live. If they become ill they want to know they won't be financially ruined and can get the medical care they need.

Bachmann says, "People want job creation. They want the economy to turn around and [they want to] work. I have that background."

Mostly true, but what's not is that most people don't want the jobs she plans to create. Bachmann has said that she would like to get rid of minimum wage in her fight against unemployment.

Sure, let's replace all the jobs that we've lost with jobs paying less than minimum wage. Now all we have to do is work five different jobs instead of the three we're currently working to make ends meet. Abolishing minimum wage does not mean an end to unemployment.

Heidi Shierholz, a labor market economist at Economic Policy Institute says, "[She] is completely wrong. If you decrease the minimum wage, you would not increase employment. The economic literature is really clear on that point."

Bachmann also says she plans to reinstate the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy, and add an amendment to the constitution that would reverse and ban same sex marriage.

A recent CNN/Opinion research survey said 60 percent of Americans under aged 50, are for same sex marriage. Most of us want gays to have equal rights, and don't want our country to move in a backward direction.

If Bachmann thinks she knows what the majority of the American people want, I believe she is wrong, and her road to the White House will quickly become a dead end street.