Spinning poll numbers is a time-honored tradition in politics, and Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann made her contribution to the art form in a new fundraising pitch Thursday to supporters. In a reference to her presidential campaign's "rising poll numbers," Bachmann trumpeted her second-place finish this week in an American Research Group poll of Iowa Republicans. The poll put her at 15 percent, between Mitt Romney at 21 percent and Rick Perry at 14 percent. Second place at 15 percent is certainly better than the single digits she's been posting in other state and national polls. But it's not rising when it comes to Iowa, where the same polling outfit had her leading in August with 21 percent support. To construe Bachmann's current 15 percent as rising, at least in an apples-to-apples kind of way, you'd have to go back to April, when American Research Group had her at 9 percent in Iowa. That was before Bachmann was in the race.
