High-minded and high-heeled

Politics: Sarah Palin isn’t the only conservative female juggling act in politics: Meet Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann | Zoe Sandvig

Associated Press/Photo by Paul Sancya

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Buzzing from the House floor interrupts Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. In a flurry of hot pink she disappears around the corner to cast her vote. Within minutes she is back, sitting on a couch in a Capitol lounge. The perfectly manicured toenails are misleading: The freshman congresswoman is a tax attorney, a full-time mom, and once worked in a fish cannery in Alaska. Before becoming Minnesota's first Republican congresswoman, she also prayed outside of abortion clinics, helped her husband start his own business, and welcomed 23 foster children into her home.

She might not be Sarah Palin, but a noticeable Minnesota accent and Midwestern work ethic put her in the same camp. At 13, Bachmann was forced to become almost financially independent after her parents divorced. She used her babysitting money to buy her own clothes and lunches at school and saved up enough to purchase her first pair of contact lenses. Between college semesters at Winona State University, she took her hardworking streak to Alaska where on one memorable day she cleaned 280 salmon.