Bachmann Beat: Gaining In Iowa, Yiddish Misstep

Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann continues to gain in Iowa this week.

The 6th District congresswoman has secured a slight edge in the state over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who's making his second bid for the White House, a CNN political blog reports. Bachmann leads Romney by three points, 32-29, according to the poll.

The news follows previous reports of Bachmann topping polls in the early-primary state, and Fox News says her lead has grown to double digits.

Meanwhile Republican candidate Fred Karger, the first openly gay person to vie for presidential, called Bachmann a “hypocrite and bigot,” according to a piece in the Huffington Post.

Elsewhere, questions about Bachmann’s faith continue to arise. The Atlantic posted a story Wednesday that explores the views of Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Stillwater, where Bachmann was a longtime member. Specifically, the article references the assertion of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, to which the church belongs, that the Roman Catholic Pope is the Antichrist.

Much of the backlash against Bachmann of late has centered on her time as a Minnesota senator, when she championed an effort to define marriage in the state as being between a man and a woman only. This story from CBS News references a 2004 interview in which she called homosexuality “personal enslavement.”

The Twitterverse was also active this morning with video of a slight verbal misstep by Bachmann, who mispronounced a Yiddish word during an interview, thinkprogress.org reports. She has been a staunch supporter of Israel.

(Bonus: The Colbert Report poked some fun at Bachmann, MinnPost reports.)