Welcome to the Fun House - Time

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By Michael Scherer and Jay Newton-Small

Civility is so 20th century. In today's Congress, the propriety of a gentleman and $5 will get you lots of committee work and a ham sandwich. Embrace the new media landscape, however, and you can break out in the national media fun house as an Internet and cable-news populist. Fame and campaign cash await.

Just take a look at this year's two great breakout stars of partisanship: Florida Democrat Alan Grayson and Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann. Once upon a time, their junior status in the House of Representatives, with its 435 power-hungry politicos, might have confined them to their cramped offices and after-hours speaking time on C-SPAN. Instead they have turned outrageous utterances into viral sensations on YouTube. Tapping into the partisan fervor surrounding health-care reform, Grayson and Bachmann have built national profiles and become the darlings of their respective ideological camps. And though they represent polar political extremes, they have followed a similar three-step formula for making a name in the 111th Congress.

Step 1: Find Your Niche

This isn't hard in our hyperpartisan age. But it is especially easy for Grayson and Bachmann. Elected in 2008, he came into politics as a litigator of war profiteers in Iraq who affixed a bush lied/people died bumper sticker to his car. She came up through grass-roots Republican politics as a culture warrior, working to ban gay marriage, expand the teaching of intelligent design and restrict abortion. In another era, strident politicians on the ideological edges found themselves marginalized once they got to Washington, where power accrues to longevity--and longevity tends to mellow. But Grayson and Bachmann found a back door.

Populists have been doing it for years--telling the common man that politicians are against them or that the political process is a farce. The difference today is that politicians no longer need to broaden their appeal beyond a committed, activist base. And they know more precisely than ever what the base wants. The soapbox, which became the sound bite, thanks to radio and television, has gone interactive. If you say it today, the audience will come to you. "There is an interactive element to this. I spend enough time online to figure out what people are thinking," explains Grayson. "I think what the Internet has done is to make mass politicking something that can also be microtargeted."

Step 2: Drop Some Bombs

"we have gangster government when the Federal Government has set up a new cartel," Bachmann announced on the floor of the House on June 9, referring to the government takeover of General Motors. A video of that speech attracted more than 2 million YouTube views. A few months later, from the same podium, she wondered if health reform would allow a 13-year-old girl to use a school "sex clinic" to get a referral for an abortion and "go home on the school bus that night." It wouldn't, but the terrifying suggestion buzzed around the Internet. The White House was forced to respond, condemning Bachmann in a blog post--which played exactly into her hands. In another speech she speculated that Democratic reforms would deny health care to the ill. "So watch out if you are disabled!" she blared. Just like that: another viral hit.

Grayson kicked off his big controversy by taking charts to the floor of the House, which makes for better video. Republicans, he said, have a "health-care plan for America: 'Don't get sick.'" He then added that they also had a plan for the sick: "Die quickly." It was an instant online sensation, with more YouTube viewers than Grayson got votes in his home district. He offered up more bombast, calling a Federal Reserve Board staffer who is a former lobbyist a "K Street whore" and calling Republicans "foot-dragging, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals" on CNN. The liberal online hub the Huffington Post linked to the caveman remark, and more than 1,500 people wrote comments. "We need about 100 more Graysons in Congress," read one. Grayson later apologized to the Fed aide but repeatedly refused to apologize to the GOP. (You can watch those videos on YouTube too.)

For Grayson and Bachmann, the objective is both to rally their loyalists and to rile the other side. Cable news embraces this sort of stuff, having turned August into the summer of town-hall fury. The liberal MSNBC host Keith Olbermann joyfully turned Bachmann into a "worst person in the world," just as Grayson became a star of conservative broadcasting as a sort of public enemy No. 1. "They gave us enormous free media exposure," Grayson says of his political opponents after his "die quickly" performance. "They were running my speech unedited on Fox for an entire day."

If you have gotten this far, you have already made it as a new media populist. Grayson now gets invited on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. Bachmann is bombarded with booking requests, which she grants with some regularity. "Frankly, Congresswoman Bachmann is in Congress to serve the people, not the media," says her spokeswoman, Debbee Keller. But Bachmann hardly lets that stop her.

Step 3: Cash In

Grayson and Bachmann have found ways to use the controversies surrounding their outbursts to raise money and broaden their reach. Their devoted followers respond to appeals. Grayson posted his CNN caveman quip on a website he created, called Congressman?With?Guts.com attracting pledges of $220,000 from nearly 3,000 donors in about three weeks. (Almost 10,000 individuals gave Grayson more than $250,000 immediately after the "die quickly" speech.) Bachmann, meanwhile, took her fundraising appeal to social media and talk radio, asking her supporters to send a message to "Big Sister Pelosi and Big Brother Reid" and the "gangster government." It worked. "The left can't ignore $118,000!!!" she announced on Twitter, boasting of a three-day online fundraising haul.

"The interesting dynamic here is that you used to be penalized by the public for not being civil," says Republican strategist John Feehery, who worked for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. "Now it's almost glorified." We still don't know whether this sort of fly-by-night notoriety of rhetorical bombast is sustainable or just diverting. In 2008, Bachmann had to battle for her seat after saying on MSNBC's Hardball that Barack Obama "may have anti-American views." And Grayson must defend a Republican-leaning district next to Disney World that he won by just 13,364 votes. Republicans have put his district at the top of their target list for 2010. "I made myself the No. 1 target for the national Republican Party," he admits. "Whatever happens, happens."

In the meantime, the Establishment is obligated to roll its eyes. Obama has likened cable news to professional wrestling and said in a recent TV interview, "The media encourages some of the outliers in behavior because, let's face it, the easiest way to get on television right now is to be really rude." But Obama plays the game too: his online fundraising pitches read like populist fairy tales, with the big insurance industry playing the wicked witch of K Street. And at a fundraiser in Miami on Oct. 26, the President called Grayson an "outstanding member of Congress."

"It's all theater," says South Carolina's James Clyburn, the House Democratic whip. "People have learned to speak in sound bites and look to generate headlines." That insight is key. The headlines are what matter most, not the substance. And in Congress today, the loudest carnival barker gets the crowds.