Michele Bachmann is rising quickly in the Iowa polls, and NOM Chairman Maggie Gallagher argues in Politico that efforts by HRC and other gay rights groups to demonize Bachmann are going to backfire among conservative caucus-goers in Iowa:

... The third-term Minnesota congresswoman and her husband, therapist Marcus Bachmann, have a history of battling gay rights groups in Minnesota long before she stepped onto the national stage.

“Michele Bachmann is the very definition of a target-rich environment, and given her husband’s positions and things she’s said in past she’s going to have a really hard time appearing as a reasonable mainstream candidate,” said Michael Cole-Schwartz, the communications director for the group Human Rights Campaign.

... Bachmann’s allies say attacks from gay rights groups will backfire.

“The more that they attack Michele Bachmann on these grounds, the better her chances of winning the Iowa caucuses are,” said Maggie Gallagher, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, who said she’d admired Bachmann since 2004. “The Iowa base is extremely upset about same-sex marriage and I don’t think they’re going to look kindly on these attacks.”