New Hampshire Union Leader to Bachmann: ‘We’re not hicks’

Michele Bachmann hasn't cast a vote in the House since early August--but that didn't keep her from insisting to New Hampshire voters this week that congressional votes have kept her from campaigning in the state.

"You didn't see me a lot here in New Hampshire and I'll tell you why: It's because my first duty was to go back to Washington, D.C.," she said, per the Associated Press's Holly Ramer.

It's an excuse that doesn't sit well with the New Hampshire Union Leader, which basically calls out Bachmann as a liar in an editorial published in the paper Wednesday.

The Union Leader's editorialists point out that Bachmann, rather than being in Washington, has actually been spending most of her campaign time in Iowa:

Her singular focus on Iowa caused her to miss out on an opportunity to become the anti-Romney candidate in New Hampshire. That was a mistake. Now she realizes it. But instead of admitting it, she's telling Granite Staters that she would love to have been here this summer if only her duties as a member of Congress had not prevented her.

Passing by the White Mountain National Forest on the way to North Conway, Rep. Bachmann might have been under the impression that New Hampshire is filled with a bunch of rural rubes easily duped by a slick one-liner. But we're not hicks. We follow national politics closely. We even have Internet access. And we're also pretty good at sniffing out political fibs, which Bachmann would have known had she spent more time here before Sunday.