If you had to sum up the favorable impression Representative Michele Bachmann has made thus far on the 2012 campaign trail, it might be with the words: “She doesn’t seem crazy at all!” Expectations surrounding Bachmann, based on her well-earned reputation as a fringe character in the House Republican Caucus, have made it easy for her to make a positive impression. Reading the reviews of her performance at the June 13 presidential candidates’ debate in New Hampshire, sprinkled with words like “articulate” and “polished” and “disciplined,” it’s very clear she’s had a low threshold to cross.

But this week, with the impeccably timed formal launch of her presidential campaign, Bachmann is about to enter a period of enormous peril in which her background, ideology, and rhetorical habits are about to get the kind of exposure only a Kardashian could enjoy. Can she possibly survive as a viable contender?

The hard-core Christian Right/Tea Party folk who are Bachmann’s base in Iowa and elsewhere, of course, don’t need any introduction to her. She’s been on the television and radio shows they patronize, and many have undoubtedly contributed to her vastly expensive congressional campaigns. They’re fine with the more outlandish things she’s said over the years, but also understand it may be necessary to bring Americans along slowly to the recognition of the high-stakes holy war that Bachmann is waging on their behalf as a self-described “constitutional conservative” (a heavily loaded term connoting a belief that liberalism—fiscal, economic, or cultural—is literally un-American and needs to be permanently vanquished) in the field.

For the rest of the GOP, however, attitudes towards Bachmann may depend on what tack her critics choose. The clear template available is the sort of questioning and mockery faced by Sarah Palin, with whom the media inevitably identify Bachmann for all sorts of good and bad reasons. You could call it the “civics test” approach, where the candidate is directly questioned about her knowledge of American history and world events, and “gotcha’d” for unforced errors (e.g., Palin’s recent revisionist account of Paul Revere’s ride, and Bachmann’s relocation of Lexington and Concord from Massachusetts to New Hampshire). As Palin’s experience shows, this sort of scrutiny can be devastating over time, particularly if the target reinforces it by constantly complaining about the treatment. But what if Bachmann, unlike Palin, keeps on proving she’s not “a flake” and doesn’t do the sort of thing that makes it hard to take her seriously—e.g., resigning her office?

Indeed, unlike Palin, the scrutiny to which Bachmann is most vulnerable is not about what she does or doesn’t know, but about what she believes. As Michelle Goldberg, an expert on “Christian nationalism,” recently explained, Bachmann’s worldview has marinated in many years of extremist training and advocacy: