(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

BY CHRISTINA HARTMAN

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em?
 

Analysts are calling the latest defection from Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign -- stunning.

KTSP: “Her Iowa campaign manager left to join Ron Paul’s campaign.”

Ouch. Less than a week out from the Iowa caucus -- Bachmann’s poll numbers are slipping. And losing state Senator Kent Sorenson’s endorsement could be a big blow. Sorenson had chaired the Minnesota congresswoman’s Iowa campaign for the past year.

Other Bachmann campaign staffers have quit before -- but on CNN, political commentator Ron Brownstein says the latest is just another sign her candidacy is on a downhill slope.

“The high point for her was winning the Ames straw poll last summer. Both her and Rick Perry as the season has gone on, even though they are probably ideologically most in tune with where the party is today, simply haven't been able to project the viability as a nominee for president and in some way that explains the vacuum you are seeing in Iowa.”

Sorenson’s reason for jumping ship? That’s the interesting part -- he says the Republican race for the White House is at a “turning point.” As KOMO reports -- fortunes have certainly changed for Ron Paul -- the candidate Sorenson is now supporting.

“A new CNN/Time Magazine poll finds Mitt Romney tops the GOP field in Iowa with 25%. Ron Paul is second with 22% and Rick Santorum has now surged to third.”

Bachmann, by the way, placed sixth in that poll. So can you blame Sorenson for going with number two over number six? Bachmann says yes -- and Fox News reports -- she’s leveling a pretty serious charge at both Sorenson and the Ron Paul campaign.

“Bachmann is now hitting back saying Sorenson defected after the Paul camp offered him money to do so. Ron Paul's people denying that charge.”

In fact, Bachmann told multiple media outlets Thursday morning that Sorenson personally told her he’d been offered “a large sum of money” by the Paul campaign to switch teams. Both Sorenson and Paul say that just isn’t true. MSNBC’s Chuck Todd offers this analysis:

“Now one thing that this could be about, it might not be about personal money. It might be about funding ground games. Lot of these big supporters and states expect when they endorse a candidate that the campaign will have the cash to do what they need to pay for their get out the vote efforts. The Bachmann campaign doesn't have a lot of cash. It's possible that she doesn't have that money and Paul does.”

Either way, The Christian Science Monitor suggests -- Sorenson’s high-profile support in the home of the nation’s first caucus won’t move votes for Paul in a big way. In fact, The Monitor’s Linda Feldmann writes -- it could actually hurt the state senator.  

“...Sorenson is probably wasting his time. Endorsements are not a significant driver of votes. … In the end, the biggest impact on Sorenson’s move might be on Sorenson himself. … Now he is best known for abandoning his candidate right before the Iowa caucuses, and in a not-pretty fashion.”

The Des Moines Register reports -- Sorenson was apparently thinking of defecting a few days before the announcement. But he’d actually appeared at a Bachmann campaign event in Iowa only hours before making the switch to Paul official.