Michele Bachmann had a pretty good weekend, if you haven’t heard. The Minnesota congresswoman won the GOP straw poll in Ames, Iowa – solidifying her position as a top tier candidate for the Republican nomination.
Iowa is a “threshold test” for conservatives such as Representative Bachmann, notes polling expert Nate Silver in his FiveThirtyEight blog. It’s necessary that they do well there, though a good performance may not be sufficient to push them over the top.
Now Bachmann has to be considered the favorite to win the Iowa caucuses early next year, according to Mr. Silver.
But here’s a question political experts all over Washington are asking this morning: In recent days has Texas Gov. Rick Perry proved he’s a more adept campaigner than the fiery Bachmann?
Partly this discussion stems from Governor Perry’s smooth appearance Sunday evening in Bachmann’s home town. At the Black Hawk County GOP’s Lincoln Day Dinner he arrived early, went table to table around the room for affable meet-and-greet, and then spoke strongly. Wisely, he paid court to Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican icon who was in the audience.
Bachmann was there too – she was not about to cede her home turf of Waterloo, Iowa, without a fight. But she stayed in her bus until it was time for her to take the stage, according to reporters who were there. After an initial introduction by a local official, she was still nowhere to be found, according to Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin of Politico. It took a second introduction to get her up to the microphone.
In the space of a few minutes, he mentioned his boyhood connections to 4-H and the Boy Scouts and his later service as an Air Force pilot. His remarks had the makings of an effective stump speech, especially for someone so new to the presidential trail.
He sat and politely listened to the other speakers, who included both Bachmann and another GOP rival, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, as well as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator. When the program ended, he quickly exited out the back, his security force helping to shield him from the shouted questions of reporters.
Bachmann arrived late, just minutes before her scheduled speech, preceded by the thumping beat of Elvis’s “Promised Land,” which always marks the arrival of her big blue bus. On stage, she acknowledged the presence of the Lincoln impersonator but not Perry or Santorum. She spoke of heart and home, of family reunions and Iowans dancing at the ballroom. She rooted herself in Iowa.
She finished with flair, offering an apple pie to the oldest person in the audience. That turned out to be 100-year-old Mary Canfield. Bachmann signed scores of autographs and then, before leaving, answered three questions from the press. She did not deviate from her talking points.
It was no surprise that the Bachmann-Perry encounter in Waterloo generated so much interest and anticipation. Perry’s entry Saturday has reshuffled the field. If he lives up to the advance hype, he could provide a stiff challenge to Mitt Romney, the apparent front-runner. Bachmann’s victory in the Ames straw poll validated her as a conservative force to be reckoned with. For now she is the person to beat in Iowa.
The Texas governor told me that while he plans to run hard everywhere, he intends to devote all the time to Iowa that Iowans have come to expect of a presidential candidate — and emphasized that he thinks he has attributes that will bring him success with the voters here.
He said he will campaign the way he did when he was Texas agriculture commissioner back in the 1990s: “Going to a lot of small towns. Going to a lot of picnics. Going to a lot of fairs and what have you. We’ll spend a lot of time in Iowa.”
He will need to do that to get around Bachmann. He might have his sights set on Romney, but he cannot ignore the Minnesota congresswoman. She has shown real discipline as a candidate, and toughness as well. Underestimated from the start, she has already far exceeded expectations.
Ed Rollins, her campaign manager, said Sunday night the campaign team knows that, having had success already, the expectations will continue grow. The next round of debates, he said, will be an important test for her to move her campaign to another level.
Sunday night’s show in Waterloo gave Republicans a taste of what’s coming. For Perry it was an impressive introduction. For Bachmann it was a homecoming to savor and a night to say thank you. For everyone watching, it was a hint of the collision that is coming in the months ahead.
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