WATERLOO, Iowa — The U.S. House of Representatives is
a notoriously poor launching pad for presidential ambitions, but Rep.
Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., who formally kicked off her campaign Monday
in the town where she was born, enters the contest for the 2012
Republican nomination with several strengths.
They include deep family roots here in the first
state to vote next winter, a strong conservative record that appeals to
tea party activists hungry for a champion against both major parties in
Washington, and a commanding speaking style that rallies the faithful
and helps her stand out in the pack.
“In a field of candidates with a whole bunch of
beige,” said veteran Iowa political analyst Dennis Goldford, “she’s neon
orange.”
Those strengths already have helped her, first in a
June 13 New Hampshire debate where she won favorable reviews, and in a
new Iowa poll Sunday showing her neck and neck in the state with former
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Bachmann, 55, formally launched her campaign Monday
with a salute to small-town values and a vow to vanquish President
Barack Obama.
“I stand here in the midst of many friends and many
family members to announce formally my candidacy for president of the
United States,” Bachmann said to cheers from about a hundred supporters
in her birthplace.
“I want to bring a voice, your voice, to the White House, just as I have brought your voice to the halls of Congress.”
Bachmann didn’t mention any of her Republican rivals.
Instead, she used the kickoff to indict Obama for what she called a
failure of leadership at home and abroad.
She ripped him for high unemployment, for piling up
government debt, for high gas prices, and for failing to reverse the
crisis in housing that’s caused waves of foreclosures and left the dream
of home ownership “distant” to too many Americans.
“We cannot continue to rack up debt on the backs of future generations,” she said.
“We can’t afford an unconstitutional health plan that
costs too much and is worth so little … can’t afford four more years
of failed leadership at home and abroad … four more years of millions
of Americans out of work or in jobs that pay too little to support their
families.”
“We can’t afford four more years of Barack Obama,” she said.
Bachmann believes she is the one candidate who can
appeal to all three branches of the Republican Party — conservatives on
national defense, economics and social issues.
Her supporters agreed, saying Romney is too liberal
because he passed a state health care law with an individual mandate;
former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is too quiet; and the rest of the
field too unknown.
“She’s a real contender,” said Robbi Sullivan, an office worker from Cedar Falls, Iowa.
“Iowa conservatives don’t like or trust Romney, and don’t know Tim Pawlenty,” said Patricia Smith of Waterloo.
Bachmann didn’t mention some of the issues that drive
social conservatives in the state, such as abortion or gay marriage.
“She is so understood as a religious conservative that she doesn’t have
to talk about it,” said Goldford, a political scientist at Drake
University in Des Moines. “They already know she’s one of them.”
What’s helpful to her in more conservative states
such as Iowa and South Carolina, though, could weigh her down in more
libertarian or moderate states such as New Hampshire.
Bachmann’s record also will come under more scrutiny
as she emerges as a top-tier candidate. The Los Angeles Times, for
example, reported Sunday that members of her family have received
federal money for their business and farm despite her vocal criticism of
federal spending.
Also, her frequent appearances on cable TV that
helped hone her communication skills also have yielded comments that
opponents could use to challenge her credibility — such as suggesting
loyalty investigations for members of Congress, or saying incorrectly
that an Obama trip to India cost $200 million a day, and that the Great
Depression started in 1933 under Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, not in
1929 under Republican Herbert Hoover.
Finally, there’s history: Only one sitting member of the House ever has been elected president — James Garfield in 1880.
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