where migraines affected congresswoman ba balkman's ability to work.oining me now is the reporter who wrote that article. thanks for joining us again. >> thanks for having me, tamron. >> exact dates, march 2006, may 2010, july 2010. is congresswoman bachmann accurately telling the public about this condition? she says she's able to function. what have you found? >> what we found were a series of incidents where she experienced headaches that were debilitating, and we had a former top staffer saying she would walk into her congressional office, shut the door and turn out the lights and basically lay down for a few hours while she tried to recover. michelle bachmann disputes that it regularly impacted her ability to do the job, but i think we did find evidence that shows that it has in the past at least interfered with her official duties. >> i'm going to go back to the list, march 2006 missed a week in the minnesota state senate. may 26 missed a day of vote, missed eight house votes while in hospital, cancelled campaign trips. i heard someone earlier sa

now, if you look that means that if palin enters the race, she and balkman are going to fight it out mostly the same constituency, that is not a question of sexism or gender. it's a question of who their constituencies are they are both strong with the tea party. bachmann is the head of the caucus and the house. palin, of course, supported it. very strong among tea partiers, exploited that used that to her advantage and helping a lot of candidates in the midterm elections. so if you add up their percentages, they are roughly equal to romney. one of them would emerge as the major opponent. and right now. >> bill: i think you are right. i don't think sarah palin is going to take any votes away from mitt romney. >> exactly. >> it's a whole different constituency. >> right now michele bachmann and we have a report on her tomorrow because there was some little thing in south carolina that we are trying to sort out right now before we report it we don't want to put on erroneous information involving an abc news correspondent. michele bachmann has some momentum, particularly in iowa where s

. >> balkman goes over big with the tea party, but does the anti-taxes crowd really understand what wouldppen if the debt ceiling isn't raised? >> absolutely not. of course they don't. but, that doesn't really matter to a candidate and will is absolutely correct. when you're able to see the real numbers and talk to real people as a president, that's totally different than riding on a bus or meeting some people in iowa and saying words that will make them feel good. no, they don't fully understand. >> a lot of people when they vote on these things and talk about during these debt ceiling or national debt talks, they're thinking about the people back home in a sense not always what's good for them, but what's good to get them re-elected. so, here's a question. to you, lz, do you think a republican supporting the debt ceiling can be re-elections in their next term for the next term or elected as president in 2012? >> i believe, yes in both cases, if the rhetoric moves away from no compromise to a compromise that seems like they won. if they are able to, say, raise the debt ceiling by also sa

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inside balkman and associates next. you're watching "american morning."our. (screams) when an investment lacks discipline, it's never this obvious. introducing investment discipline etfs from russell. visit russelletfs.com r a prospectus, containing the investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses and other information. read and consider it carefully before investing. >>> welcome back to "american morning." a former client says a clinic outside of minneapolis promised him a miracle that would change him from gay to straight. >> that clinic, balkman and associates, owned by republican presidential candidate michele bachmann and her husband. >> jim acosta has been taking a closer look at the bachmann family business and joins us live from washington. she's been asked about this a few times of late and has not responded to what was going on there. >> that's right, kiran. michele bachmann and her husband marcus run a christian counseling service that appears to believe gays and lesbians can change their sexual orientation through a religious based therapy.

. >> so it was okay for michelle balkman as well as the president? the rise continues for michelle bachmann. she's been topping a lot of polls and in this one she does the same thing. there's a new one from the university. michelle bachmann holding study and michele bachmann is up 14%, and that's up from a similar poll in june. we know the two of those last two are not officially running but considering it. president obama in head to head match-ups in the same poll, he tops them all. obama/romney, obama/palin, and good news for bachmann rising. >>> cnn politics.com. with unemployment more than 9%, we talk about how to make your resume stand out. but that's not the only thing we're reviewing. alison, i did not know people still had cover letters. i thought it was all e-mail. tell us about it. >> i hear you. you can write a letter, and cover letters are just as important as the resume if you want to land an interview or job. we spoke with the ceo of job bound, and he said that everybody ends up writing the same cover letter with the four same paragraph