A profile of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann in the left-leaning U.K.’s Guardian newspaper asks: “Just how far can she go?”

It calls her “the fiercely rightwing darling of the Tea Party, who is rapidly becoming one of the most famous politicians in America and may yet outshine Sarah Palin as a potential Republican presidential pick for 2012.”

The writer — Guardian U.S. correspondent Paul Harris, based in New York — says the Tea Party, and “its surge of rightwing anger in the country since Obama came into office” has driven her to prominence.

Bachmann’s campaign is compared to the Tea Party:

The Tea Party’s organisation is untidy and dysfunctional and prone to squabbling. So too is Bachmann’s. Last week, despite the amazing fundraising news, Bachmann’s finance director, Zandra Wolcott, quit. Her chief of staff, Ron Carey — her fifth chief of staff in four years — also left.

Concludes the piece:

Bachmann, like the Tea Party movement as a whole, is a double-edged sword for the Republicans. While she has raised huge amounts of cash, so too has Tarryl Clark, the otherwise unknown Democrat running against her. Clark has raised $910,000 in the past three months — also more than Palin and all because she is facing Bachmann. The energy that the Tea Party generates brings strong support, but also guarantees fierce opposition. It could be enough to win the midterm elections, but not enough to prevent Obama winning a second term as president. It is enough to put Bachmann in the national spotlight, but not enough to put her in the White House.