Campaign Migraine: Bachmann Guards 'Manhandle' ABC Reporter

COMMENTARY | While everything seems to be be coming up all rosy in Iowa, Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign ran into nothing but headaches in South Carolina this week, the latest of which involved the rough treatment of a reporter at a political rally in Aiken. Although Bachmann spokespeople have countered with a different version of the story, it is just the latest in a quick string of events surrounding reports that the Minnesota Congresswoman suffers from "migraines that incapacitate."

In fact, according to Time's Michael Crowley, who shared what he saw at the Aiken rally with CNN's Lisa Sylvester, things took a dramatic turn for the worse after Bachmann finished her speech and went to leave the stage. He noted that ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross shouted over background music as Bachmann made her exit, asking if she had ever missed a Congressional vote or roll call because of her migraines. He also noted that Bachmann refused to acknowledge Ross as she made her way to a waiting vehicle.

Ross was following up a report in the Daily Caller, an article that cited anonymous sources, that Bachmann suffered from debilitating migraine headaches, some so severe they have required hospitalization. The report also revealed that the presidential hopeful also took powerful preventive and controlling migraine medication as well.

"I've maintained a full schedule between my duties as a Congresswoman and a presidential candidate traveling across this nation," Bachmann said at the South Carolina rally, in a report filed by ABC's Brian Ross (wherein he mentioned that reporters were blocked by her security staff) . "I have prescribed medication I take on occasion whenever symptoms arise and they keep my migraines under control. But I'd like to make it abundantly clear, my ability to function effectively will not affect my ability to serve as Commander in Chief."

But when she refused to answer questions at the end of the rally, Crowley said that Ross kept repeating his question, following Bachmann across the stage. He said there was "nothing particularly unusual about it," but as Bachmann got into her waiting car, things got anything but usual.

"A couple of guys really just came at him [Brian Ross]," Crowley told CNN. "There were a few cops there and there were what looked to me like two bodyguards -- and their hands were on him. They were -- sort of manhandling and pushing him and you know at one point it looked like they were kind of holding him back, pulling him away from her as he was just trying to ask her this question. And she just ignored the question -- And got in her car and drove away."

Alice Stewart, a Bachmann spokesperson, told CNN that the Congresswoman was on a tight schedule and that Ross had been told repeatedly not to get on stage. " And he did it," she said. "And then he ran around a group of people '" just repeatedly disregarded our request for him to stay back so she could get in the car and go to D.C."

ABC News has since confirmed to CNN that Crowley's account was accurate.

The Bachmann bodyguards' "manhandling" treatment of the ABC News reporter resembles an incident in the recent hotly contested Alaska senatorial election during the 2010 MidTerm Elections, where Tea Party challenger Joe Miller's bodyguards not only allegedly muscled an Alaska Dispatch reporter away from talking with Miller, but also detained him with handcuffs. Miller went on to lose the close election.

Although she won four straight Iowa polls last week, Bachmann faired a little worse in a recent South Carolina Republican presidential preference American Research Group poll. She finished a distant third behind frontrunner Mitt Romney (25 percent) and three points behind undeclared and potential candidate Sarah Palin (16 percent). Before the Aiken rally, Bachmann stopped in Columbia the day before to sign Sen. Jim DeMint's "cut, cap, balance" pledge, something she had held off doing because she said it didn't go "far enough" with regard to political reforms -- but seemingly changed her mind after her campaign weathered the public relations headache of signing onto the "Marriage Vow" pledge.