Michele Bachmann on Friday defended her record in
Washington after withering attacks from GOP rival Tim Pawlenty in the
Iowa Republican debate Thursday night.
“Her record of accomplishments and results is
non-existent,” Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor, said during the
forum in Ames.
Not so, the Minnesota congresswoman said. During an
interview with NBC’s “Today” show, Bachmann said she’s been “the leading
voice, almost the lone voice in the wilderness of Washington,” on
issues like the debt ceiling.
Until this year, she was in the minority party in
Congress, when Nancy Pelosi was speaker and Democrats controlled the
House and the Senate.
“Obviously they weren’t interested in my pro-growth
agenda. But that’s when you fight. … And I’ve been the champion for
the voice of people who’ve been crying for Washington to stop spending
so much money and to reduce taxes,” she said.
The Pawlenty-Bachmann spat was the standout moment of
Thursday’s debate, representing the broader shift of Republican
candidates focusing their attacks on one another, rather than
exclusively against President Obama.
The Pawlenty campaign tried to spin after the debate that Bachmann was the aggressor.
“We were surprised,” campaign manager Nick Ayers said. “We came to talk about our record. She came to pick a fight.”
Mitt Romney, meanwhile, kept his head above the fray.
He took more heat from the Republicans on stage than at the last forum
in June, but benefited by the skirmishing from those trying to break out
from the middle of the pack.
Doing so will only get more difficult in the days
ahead. Sarah Palin is set to cast a shadow over the straw poll
festivities this weekend in Iowa as she resumes her “One Nation” bus
tour. And Rick Perry officially tosses his hat into the ring this
weekend, something that drew more attention from the Obama campaign
Friday morning.
David Axelrod, a senior strategist for the
president’s re-election campaign, said he was looking forward to
scrutiny of the Texas governor’s record.
“When you examine the entire record what’s happened
to education in that state, what’s happened to healthcare in that state,
it’s a record of decimation, not of progress,” Axelrod told ABC’s “Good
Morning America,” responding to Perry’s attacks on Obama’s record on
jobs.
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Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
