Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann officially began her presidential campaign Monday in Iowa, calling herself a constitutional conservative who would save the nation from an overspending government that has grown too big and intrusive. “We have to recapture our Founders’ vision of a constitutionally conservative government if we are to secure the promise of the future,” the Minnesota congresswoman told a crowd in Waterloo, Iowa, where she was born.
Bachmann’s announcement comes on the heels of a Des Moines Register poll that shows her suddenly surging to a statistical first-place tie in the Hawkeye State with GOP front-runner Mitt Romney and far ahead of the candidate who was thought to be her closest competitor in Iowa, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
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Pawlenty, who is already advertising in Iowa, is struggling in the single digits, far behind Bachmann as both work to win over Tea Party members and conservatives who are expected to dominate the 2012 Iowa caucuses.
The Iowa Independent’s 2012 Power Ranking released Monday declared Bachmann the “clear winner” if the Iowa caucuses, scheduled for Feb. 6, were held today.
University of Iowa political science professor Timothy Hagle, who helped rank the candidates for the Independent’s list, said Pawlenty’s low numbers in the Des Moines Register poll were surprising because his Iowa campaign is well organized.
The problem for Pawlenty, he said, is that his candidacy has failed to generate excitement.
Bachmann, he said, has the opposite problem. She is scrambling to beef up her Iowa campaign to match the rising expectations for her chances to win there.
“Bachmann has the buzz, but Pawlenty has the organization,” Hagle said. “Now it comes to a head. Which candidate is going to make up the deficit faster?”
While both Pawlenty and Bachmann come from neighboring Minnesota, Bachmann is the only GOP candidate born in Iowa, a point she stressed during her campaign announcement on Monday.
In extolling her Iowa roots, however, Bachmann stumbled, mistakenly declaring Waterloo to be the home of Hollywood icon John Wayne, when it was actually once briefly the home of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. John Wayne was also from Iowa, but from the town of Winterset, not Waterloo.
The gaffe is one of several Bachmann has made in recent weeks, underscoring both her need for better staffing to catch such blunders and her difficulty in escaping the overall sense that she is a less serious candidate than other GOP contenders.
So widespread is talk of Bachmann’s repeated gaffes that “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace asked her, “Are you a flake?”
He later apologized, but political strategists say the John Wayne comment will only fuel similar questions about her candidacy.
Pollster Ron Faucheux, president of Clarus Research Group, said such gaffes are among many things could that cause Bachmann to lose Iowa to another candidate like Pawlenty.
In 2004, Faucheux noted, early Iowa polls of the Democratic presidential field showed former Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean tied for the lead, only to have both of them lose to Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina finished second.
“There are still a lot of things that can change the dynamics of these races between now and February,” Faucheux said.
