Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann continues her push for the “default now!” vote with a second Iowa TV spot touting her opposition to the U.S. remaining creditworthy, repeating her signature “I.will.not.vote.to.increase.the.debt.ceiling,” line.

It will be interesting to see how this affects her numbers when we do either a) default or b) raise the debt limit (marginalizing her as to the right of John Boehner and Eric Cantor), though perhaps the latter is exactly what she’s after.

But she’s been pushed off message this week, as several former aides who apparently enjoy dishing dirt on her outed the congresswoman as a serial migraine sufferer who is regularly incapacitated for days at a time and has even been hospitalized repeatedly over the past few years. Her bodyguards did not take kindly to ABC investigative journalist Brian Ross pressing her on the issue at a campaign event Tuesday:

Ross dashed after Bachmann, repeatedly asking whether she had ever missed a House vote due to a migraine. She ignored him. Ross pursued her into a parking area behind the stage. Her aides grew alarmed. When Ross made a beeline for the white SUV waiting to carry Bachmann away, two Bachmann men pounced on him, grabbing and pushing him multiple times with what looked to me like unusual force. In fact, I have never seen a reporter treated so roughly at a campaign event, especially not a presidential one. Ross was finally able to break away and lob his question at Bachmann one more time, but she continued to ignore him.

Afterward, I asked Ross — a hard-nosed pro who nevertheless seemed slightly shaken — whether he had ever been treated so roughly. “A few times,” he told me. “Mostly by Mafia people.”

Considering that Bachmann has run screaming out of a bathroom, fearing for her sexual purity when lesbian constituents were asking about her views on LGBT issues, and has been spotted hiding in the bushes at a marriage equality rally, the migraines–and the bizarre way she is dealing with their revelation–only add to the growing mystique swirling around the culture warrior, despite her best efforts to run a campaign based on the fiscal crisis confronting the nation.