Making the rounds on the morning talk shows today, Michele Bachmann took a victory lap in Iowa this morning after winning the Ames Straw Poll, but the political fight for Iowa's attention has just begun.
"Obama is my strategy," Bachmann said on ABC's "This Week." "I intend to be the nominee of the Republican Party and to take him on and to defeat him in 2012."
Perhaps the bigger game changer in the Republican presidential field Saturday happened 1,200 miles away from Iowa with Texas Gov. Rick Perry announcing his candidacy at a Republican gathering in South Carolina.
"It is time to get America working again, and that's why with the support of my family and unwavering belief in the goodness of America, I declare to you today as a candidate for president of the United States," Perry said
Perry, who will now challenge Bachmann for the social and Christian conservative vote, is making his first appearance as a presidential candidate in Iowa tonight.
Perry's first stop in Iowa was in Bachmann's hometown of Waterloo. And in an apparent challenge to protect her territory, Bachmann changed her schedule and stopped at the same dinner in Waterloo that Perry attended.
As Perry and Bachmann prepare for a political showdown in the Republican presidential primary, the crossing of the two candidates' paths makes for political theater.
This wasn’t something I felt compelled to do six months ago or even three months ago,” Perry said. He was hopeful that “one of the people in our group would explode out and take off and everybody in American could get behind them. That hasn’t happened. My wife basically said, ‘Listen, our country is in trouble and you need to do your duty.’ And that was a pretty clarion call for me.”
Perry and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) will be speaking tonight at a fundraiser for the Black Hawk County GOP. Perry was mobbed as soon as he entered the historic Electric Ballroom. He high-fived a boy wearing an “Americans for Rick Perry” T-shirt, kissed a 100-year-old woman’s cheek and discussed rain totals with farmers.
When one man called him “Mr. President,” Perry replied, “Hey listen, I got a whole lot of asking to do before anything happens out here in Iowa.”
Perry said his campaign in Iowa would be similar to his campaign to become Texas’ agriculture commissioner in 1990.
“Going to a lot of small towns, going to a lot of picnics, going to lots of fairs. Oh yeah, man, we’re going to spend a lot of time in Iowa,” Perry said. “These people, as you’ll hear in my remarks, are a lot like the people I grew up with, mostly agriculture oriented, small-town folks, so we’re going to have a good time, getting to know them better.
Tags: Michele Bachmann ,Obama casts ,Texas economy ,Bachmann and Rick
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