Did TCF Financial CEO Help Launch Michele Bachmann's Career?

William A. Cooper, the chairman and chief executive of TCF Financial Corp., makes a cameo appearance in this week's New Yorker profile of GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann.

When Cooper became chairman of the Minnesota Republican party in the early 1990s, Ryan Lizza writes, the famously outspoken banker "started to demand more ideological purity." Lizza quotes Gary Laidig, a former state senator, as saying that moderate Republicans like him "became persona-non-grata."

This was fortuitous for the staunchly conservative Bachmann; she "was getting interested in politics just as her party was getting interested in people like her," and eventually defeated Laidig in the primary run for his seat.  

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Law and regulation
MORE FROM AMERICAN BANKER