text: One staple of a Michele Bachmann campaign event is blaring Elvis Presley music. Another is a reference to her intent to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Increasingly, there is a third feature of a Bachmann appearance on the presidential trail: a staffer’s physical confrontation with a reporter. 
   
   In less than two months since entering the 2012 race, Bachmann’s campaign staff has become embroiled in at least five unusually hostile encounters with the traveling media marked by pushing, shoving and, in one instance, the allegation of a threat of violence to a reporter. 
   
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   reset Allen on Bachmann security POLITICO 44 
   
   Some of it has unfolded in full public view: Bachmann aides’ tussles with the press have twice turned into news stories, once when veteran ABC News reporter Brian Ross was shoved and pushed by Bachmann staffers in South Carolina and on a second occasion when Bachmann’s husband and two staffers pushed CNN’s Don Lemon into a cart, producing a furious on-air complaint. 
   
   In another incident that did not make the air, a camera captured Fox News correspondent Steve Brown telling a bodyguard in Iowa, “Do not put your hands on me. Don’t ever do it again.” 
   
   A foreign reporter also alleged to POLITICO this week that an aide threatened to break his arm — an allegation the Bachmann campaign denied. 
   
   Friction between the press and high-profile politicians and celebrities is nothing new. But the number and intensity of incidents is unusual, particularly in Iowa, where reporters and the public are accustomed to almost unlimited access as an early state presidential ritual. 
   
   The campaign makes no apologies for its physically aggressive approach to media management, asserting that it is simply doing what it has to do to protect a popular, controversial candidate. The most aggressive aide — a tall, silver-haired man according to reporters — a spokeswoman said, is a former Secret Service agent who has guarded presidents. He and an advance woman frequently make physical contact with reporters. 
   
   “The No. 1 priority for us every single day we step out on the campaign trail is the safety and security of Michele Bachmann,” said her spokeswoman, Alice Stewart. 
   
   The retired Secret Service agent, whom she declined to name, is “extremely professional.” 
   
   “He’s guarded presidents and vice presidents and knows exactly what needs to be done,” she said. “When he gives a warning to whoever it may be, the person needs to heed the warning.” 
   
   The conduct seems authentically motivated by security concerns for the popular grass-roots candidate, who tends to draw enthusiastic crowds. But the Minnesota congresswoman isn’t the first celebrity-like figure to run for president, or the biggest. And the contentious encounters with the press has far oustripped that of other high-profile campaigns. Security guards for high-profile candidates like Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were better able to distinguish between reporters and threats. 
   
   The difference was sharply visible over the past week at the Iowa State Fair. Palin wandered the fairgrounds freely with her husband, an advance man, and, at a remove, a handful of Iowa State Police. Rick Perry was guarded by watchful Texas Rangers who gave the press and fair-goers broad latitude to talk and walk next to the governor. Bachmann, in contrast, raced through the fair in a golf cart; in a similar cart in Ames on Saturday, her bodyguard could be seen pushing away the hands of autograph-seeking supporters. 
   
   The reporter alleging that a warning crossed over into a threat is a Norwegian correspondent, Are Tagvold Flaten, who is in Iowa on a grant from the Oslo-based Freedom of Expression Foundation. He is covering the race for a Norwegian website about American politics and also wrote about the Ames Straw Poll for the conservative Norwegian Web journal Minerva (recently in the news for its editor’s pained consideration of the fact that the mass murderer Anders Breivik was among the site’s commenters). ||||| Kathy Griffin has, over the past few years, been a persistent thorn in the side of the Palin family, pulling public stunts, taking out Levi Johnston to events and making jokes about Sarah and Bristol a regular part of her stand-up repertoire. Now, with a new religious ultraconservative woman taking the spotlight, the comedienne has a new target in her sights. 
   
   Appearing on "Conan" Monday night, Griffin recalled the time she met Bachmann in Washington while researching for her rally to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. 
   
   Perhaps mistaking Griffin for someone else, one of Bachmann's staffers pulled out a video camera to capture their interaction for her website. First, Griffin says she asked the Congresswoman if she'd support an effort to repeal the law that banned homosexuals from the military. When Bachmann declined, Griffin got personal. 
   
   "Congresswoman Bachmann, were you born a bigot or did you, like, grow into it?" she asked -- on tape. 
   
   As for Bachmann's answer? 
   
   "That's a good question. I'm gonna have to get back to ya," she said, perhaps not creating the best of campaign slogans. 
   
   WATCH:
target: – Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign is brash and boisterous—and increasingly rough with the reporters covering it, reports Politico. In less than two months, there have been at least five incidents reporters have called unusually hostile, including a Norwegian reporter who says an aide threatened to break his arm. Bachmann's campaign says security is just doing what it needs to keep their candidate safe, but veteran reporters say her security is going too far, well beyond the norms for bigger and more controversial candidates' security. Bachmann's spokeswoman defended one guard, a retired Secret Service agent, who has particularly come under criticism for his rough style. “He’s guarded presidents and vice presidents and knows exactly what needs to be done,” she said. “When he gives a warning to whoever it may be, the person needs to heed the warning.” On the other hand, with celebrities calling Bachmann a "bigot" to her face—as Kathy Griffin recounted on her Monday appearance on Conan—perhaps her security feels the need to stand up for their candidate.