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There's but one fact worthy of consideration when mulling the dimension of the challenge facing Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) in her White House bid:

The U.S. has elected only one House member directly to the presidency.

That was James Garfield in 1880. A longtime Congressman, Garfield had the advantage of having simultaneously been re-elected to his House seat and appointed to the U.S. Senate by the Ohio legislature at the time of his rise to the White House.

But for the 2012 election, a much different political epoxy paves the road to the White House than has blacktopped the trail in previous years.

More than 30 House members have run for president since 1912. Most of those candidacies have been since 1972.

Only a few of the House's heaviest of hitters have had a decent shot of securing their party's nomination. House Speaker Champ Clark (D-MO) nearly wrested the 1912 Democratic nomination away from Woodrow Wilson. House Speaker John Nance Garner (D-TX) finished third in 1932. Former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO) won the Iowa Caucuses in 1988 and ran again in 2004. The late Rep. Jack Kemp (R-NY) sought the GOP nomination in 1988.

The best-known House member to follow through with his campaign to November was former Rep. John Anderson (R-IL) in 1980. Anderson ran as an independent, securing seven percent of the vote.

But most campaigns from House members have been Quixotic efforts.

The late Rep. Patsy Mink (D-HI) ran solely on the platform opposing the war in Vietnam in 1972.

In recent years, Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Ron Paul (R-TX) have conducted multiple bids, drawing small but vocal, active bands of supporters. Paul is running again this year. He just won the straw poll for president at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans.

Washington, DC's non-voting representative to Congress, former Del. Walter Fauntroy (D-DC) ran a 1972 campaign to bring attention to how the federal government treated the capital city.

Also in 1972, Rep. Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) became the first African American woman to seek the nomination of a major political party.

But for many House members, their campaigns are pie-in-the-sky efforts that usually languish. A good example of this came from former then-Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) in 2008. Tancredo dropped out of the presidential sweepstakes just before the Iowa Caucuses. Tancredo told me he dozed off in his hotel room while watching the Caucuses. All of a sudden, a crawl on the bottom of the screen read "Tancredo-5.

DC Mayor Protests Budget Deal, Gets Arrested - FoxNews.com

Approximately 300 District of Columbia residents descended upon the Hart Senate Office Building to protest the policy prescriptions contained in Friday night's spending compromise.

Following a rally outside the building, DC Mayor Vincent Gray , accompanied by several city government officials and dozens of local activists, blocked traffic on Constitution Avenue as an act of civil disobedience and were arrested by U.S. Capitol Police.

The budget measure, crafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., House Speaker John Boehner , R-Ohio, and President Obama, contains limits on the city's ability to spend money on abortion services and reauthorizes a school voucher program that the city government opposes.

Before being arrested, Gray and others blasted the budget bargain.

"DC deserves to be free," said Gray, "This is an absolute travesty. All we want to do is spend our own money."

"I'm disappointed in our president," Councilmember Muriel Bowser said, "He bargained away our rights."

"We are not treated like a colony. We are treated like a plantation," said DC Councilmember Michael Brown.

"Why should women in the District of Columbia be subjected to a set of rules that no other woman is subjected to," Gray said, "If we want a school voucher program we should chose that ourselves."

Many District of Columbia residents have a complicated relationship with the federal government.

Though home to thousands of government employees, The District does not have a vote in Congress. The city's license plates read "No taxation without representation," as a form of protest.

The city's submits it's financial plans to Congress, which has the final say in budget matters.

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