William A. Cooper, the chairman and chief executive of TCF Financial Corp., makes a cameo appearance in The New Yorker's feature on GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann.
Processing Content
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.
