Posted on 07/02/2011 12:25:07 PM PDT by Kaslin
PJTV's Alexis Garcia has been accompanying the contender to her very well-attended campaign stops.
In the span of a few weeks, Michele Bachmann has gone from fringe candidate to serious contender in the 2012 race. While her frontrunner status is hardly a surprise to loyal Tea Party followers, the emergence of Bachmann as a player on the national scene has caught the attention of many early state voters and (for better or worse) those in the national press corps.
Bachmann’s road to the White House started on Monday in Iowa, where she officially announced her candidacy before embarking on campaign stops in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Covering over 2,600 miles within a 72-hour period, the congresswoman laid out her platform before voters in key early states and aggressively attacked President Barack Obama for his failed economic policies.
“We can’t afford four more years of Barack Obama,” Bachmann exclaimed in her announcement speech in her native Waterloo, Iowa, on Monday. “This election is about big issues, not petty ones. When all is said and done, we cannot be about big government as usual.”
Her message is one that many conservatives have been hungry for in a current field of candidates being described as “unimpressive.”
“She’s one of us. She’s lived the same lives many of us have lived,” said David Alderman of Waterloo. “I think she has that ‘it’ factor. I like what she stands for and I think I can easily get behind her.”
Bachmann’s “it factor” and her ability to connect with her audience and speak to salient issues — whether it be her roots in Iowa, the economy in New Hampshire, or family values in South Carolina — make her a formidable opponent. While she is able to portray what she calls a “compassionate” side with tales of motherhood and her love for her husband Marcus, to whom she has been married for 33 years, Bachmann is no shrinking violet when it comes to attacking her foes. She scolded the media at a stop in Charleston for wanting to see a “mud wrestling fight” between her and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, and she never missed an opportunity to get her jabs in at President Obama (at all of her stops, she joked of retiring the teleprompter upon her arrival to the White House).
For many voters, this was the first time they got to see the Minnesota congresswoman in person — meaning this was also the first time they got to see her without the caricatures and extremist portrayals put forward by the national, partisan press. Many in her audiences seemed to be pleasantly surprised by Bachmann’s performance. The lawmaker’s common sense message of limited government and a return to constitutional principles was well received at every stop.
Paula Tarta of Rye, New Hampshire, was one of those in the crowd who walked away with a favorable impression of the congresswoman. “I thought she was super energized. I do think she has the titanium backbone that it’s going to take to go up against this ol’ boy network. I’m excited for her and excited to be supporting her.”
In one of the more genuine moments of her tour, Bachmann confided to voters at a town hall gathering in Rock Hill, South Carolina, on Wednesday night that she had suffered a miscarriage after the birth of her second child. It was a poignant answer in describing her pro-life roots and inspiration to become a foster parent — one that most of her campaign staff were completely unaware of.
As Bachmann rolled into her stops along the tour, she was greeted by enthusiastic crowds whose size exceeded the expectations of her staff. They had anticipated about 50 to 100 people at each stop; instead they got crowds ranging from 300 to more than a thousand.
The crowds comprised Tea Party faithful and those that were curious to get a glimpse of the GOP’s latest addition to the field. The congresswoman showed she had the star power to pull in big numbers. In South Carolina, many onlookers had waited over two hours in blistering heat just to see her speak. At a town hall forum at Winthrop University, there were more than 500 people packed in an overflow area who could not get a seat inside the auditorium.
In Charleston, two women who admitted they were from “the most liberal zip code” in the state had come to see Bachmann out of sheer curiosity. They left halfway through her stump, but the episode illustrated Bachmann’s intrigue to those on the other side of the political spectrum.
Taking the stage to Katrina and the Waves’ “Walking on Sunshine” at her earlier stops, Bachmann was buoyed by the energy of her audience as the tour continued. While her campaign is about tackling serious issues, she showed her lighter side by cutting a rug with her husband onstage at a rally in Myrtle Beach, and got laughs from a backyard crowd in Raymond, New Hampshire, when describing her early dates to a nursing home where her husband used to volunteer as a young adult.
Her husband Marcus, now a clinical therapist, even came and sat in the back of the plane with the traveling press pool to offer free psychoanalysis.
That Bachmann has been able to capture significant momentum this early in the race is notable; the fact that she has been able to do so with minimal campaign structure and organization is impressive.
The congresswoman skipped the exploratory phase altogether and instead focused on the New Hampshire debate earlier this month as her launching pad to the GOP nomination. (President Barack Obama formed his exploratory committee about a month before his official launch; Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney seems to have been preparing for a run at the White House since he folded his last presidential campaign in February 2008).
The debate was supposed to be Mitt Romney’s big debut, but Bachmann stole the show and quickly became the story of the night as she boldly exclaimed: “President Barack Obama will be a one-term president!”
Bachmann knew she needed to perform well at the debate to get her campaign off the ground, and an early goal for her was to assemble the best team to get her prepared. In addition to campaign veteran Ed Rollins, Bachmann’s early staff additions include Palin debate coach Brett O’Donnell, strategist Keith Nahigian, former Huckabee spokeswoman Alice Stewart, and pollster Ed Goeas.
Team Bachmann’s initial leg work seems to be paying off: the congresswoman is in a statistical tie with Romney in Iowa according to the latest Des Moines Register survey, and in New Hampshire, a Suffolk University poll shows her climbing seven percentage points just in the last month alone.
While the 2012 election is still in the early stages and any candidate is always one news cycle away from irrelevance (see Gingrich, Newt), it is important to point out that the enthusiasm behind Bachmann is similar to the reception Obama and Palin had when they were introduced on the national scene. But while Bachmann’s detractors and critics have questioned whether or not she has the fortitude to mount a serious campaign, those who attended her announcement tour walked away with one thing in mind: Michele Bachmann is the real deal.
Also watch Alexis at PJTV: BOY’S CLUB BEWARE: Michele Bachmann Enters the Race for President
I don’t see how you can say Bachmann has not led. As in, at all.
She got where she is (now a credible candidate for POTUS - at least for now) because she has led. She’s been out there talking on radio and tv, addressing rallies, being a thorn in the side of Boehner & gang, constantly rallying the voters to positions of fiscal conservatism and limited government.
To define leadership as only introducing bills or working on legislation is just dumb, IMO. Sorry.
P.S. How in Hell’s Bells would any of us even know who she was if she wasn’t leading the charge on the issues that are important to the Tea Party movement?
Yes.
But this post is saying that Bachman is, basically, disqualified because she doesn’t have “executive experience.”
I don’t agree with that.
That’s separate, though, from whether she is the best candidate for POTUS.
It’s a weakness, imho. However, I also believe that she is still a better candidate than many of the others out there, regardless.
Agreed.
The question it raises is she smart enough to get the people around her to provide “experience.”
Sometimes you can tell this about how a candidate runs his campaign, though I don’t think that’s foolproof either. Plus we, on the outside, really don’t know how well or poorly a campaign is being run on the inside. We only know what leaks out or an incident here or there.
It will be interesting to see how the race develops. I really don’t see anyone currently in the ring generating more enthusiasm for the longterm. Yes, if Palin gets in, things change (How? Not knowable.) I don’t think Perry gets out of the gate at all, as great as he may be.
This is a “changed” election, not a “change” election as Rove used to use that term. We’re really at a unique crossroads in history.
You know, I apologize. I have been participating in two Bachmann threads more or less simultaneously and may have sort of interwoven the two in my conversation with you.
If so, again, sorry.
My points, however, do remain! :)
Obviously I knew you didn’t mean it literally. Congressman Bachmann has not moved beyond “mere” representative as long as she pockets that taxpayer paycheck, and uses that office, staff, and status to leverage her way into another government position.
Real Americans recognize when a career politician is hedging their bets. Let’s leave that detestable mode of operation to the Kerrys, McCains, Hilarys, and Obamas that populate this depressingly cheap era of our nation’s political life.
So the organizations she has run don’t fit with your elitist frame of mind.
Dairy farm business.
Very large household.
Charter School business employing 30. Founded and ran it.
These are organizations she ran.
Hey, but to the elitists they don’t count.
But to the Tea Party that says the people have to take this country back, THEY DO.
She has led the people who have sent her there. The Tea Party is an insurgency into the establishment to take this country back, and if you do not understand the Tea Party and Michele Bachmann you have no clue what the heck is going on.
She is not the one!!! Come on, I cant believe such smart folks here on FR are gaga already.... Whoaaaaaa.
Not the one. She is awesome in Congress, thats all right now.
Come on! Seriously?
Your posts 22 and 23 are very good. She is a leader. She has led, she is leading. To say she wasn’t leading because she’s not passing her bills and holding leadership posts in Congress or whatever is just silly in this day and age. Leadership is leadership. Just ask the Tea Party. Grass roots, baby...
Here I must disagree, only because she does have experience running organizations.
The reason you keep being told she doesn’t have any is because the ones saying so have nothing but contempt for the type of experience running things that she has.
She ran the business side of a dairy farm. She ran a huge household. She started and ran her own business that employed 30 people.
This is Tea Party member type of experience.
It’s instructive to see who on here has no use for it.
What you said.
That’s a different issue than people stating that because Bachmann is “just a Congress member,” she has no experience, can’t win, blah blah blah.
Yes, I know it’s a differnt issue, and a more important one.
I think you have a point. It is weakened by Obamas time in office, however. Obama has lowered the bar on qualifications for the job.
No apology necessary. I’ve enjoyed our conversation. :)
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