Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who formally announced her candidacy Monday as the "bold choice" for the GOP presidential nomination, has emerged as a tea party darling by repeatedly excoriating government aid and other examples of growing U.S. "socialism."

Yet, as the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday, a Bachmann family farm in Wisconsin has received $260,000 in federal subsidies over 13 years, while a counseling clinic run by her husband has received $30,000 in state and federal funding since 2006.

These revelations have led some left-leaning bloggers and political foes to brand Rep. Bachmann as a "welfare queen" - but we suspect predominantly social-conservative voters in Iowa, where farm subsidies are sacrosanct, may be willing to overlook this double standard given Rep. Bachmann's unbending opposition to abortion, gay marriage and President Barack Obama's federal health care program. The three-term lawmaker made her announcement in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, the state that will host the nation's first party caucuses next February.

A recent poll shows Rep. Bachmann rising to a statistical dead heat in Iowa with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, lapping a lackluster field of candidates who have failed to ignite much passion among Republican faithful. Her growing popularity, fueled more by emotion than reason, should be good news for President Obama's re-election in 2012 if it takes wind from the sails of Mr. Romney, the nationwide GOP favorite and a candidate far more likely to gain broad voter support in a general election than the far-right Rep. Bachman.

While this newspaper agrees with Rep. Bachmann's goals of shrinking the national debt and creating new jobs, she hasn't introduced any legislation or come up with any viable solutions to these critical problems.

The reports on the subsidies and federal grants suggest the only jobs she has focused on are the family farm or her husband's business.