AMES, Iowa — The 2012 Republican presidential race heated up Saturday as latecomer Texas Gov. Rick Perry formally announced his candidacy and Iowans weighed in for the first time on their expanding field of presidential hopefuls, picking U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann as their top choice for the party's nomination.
Together, the events were certain to reshuffle the race to face President Barack Obama who has become increasingly vulnerable because of the sputtering economic recovery. Nearly a dozen Republicans are seeking the chance to challenge Obama in November 2012 for the leadership of a country facing a recent downgrade in its credit rating, high unemployment and Wall Street tumult.
Bachmann -- a favourite of the small government, low tax tea party movement with a following among evangelicals who make up the Republican base in Iowa and elsewhere -- got more than 28 per cent of the 17,000 votes cast in the nonbinding straw poll. It provides clues about each candidate's level of support and campaign organization five months before the Iowa caucuses kick off the presidential nomination season.
"We are going to make Barack Obama a one-term president," Bachmann declared to cheers on the campus of Iowa State University during a daylong political festival. A few hours later, after learning she had won the straw poll, she said: "This is the very first step toward taking back the White House!"
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who has support among libertarian-leaning voters, came in a close second. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was looking for a strong showing to boost his struggling campaign, but fared a distant third, raising questions about the future of his candidacy.
Pawlenty decided to exit after finishing a disappointing third in the Iowa straw poll. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann won the most votes, followed by Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
“I wish it would have been different,” Pawlenty said on ABC's This Week.
Pawlenty said his message “didn't get the kind of traction or lift that we needed and hoped for coming into the and out of the Ames straw poll. We needed to get some lift to continue on and to have a pathway forward. That didn't happen.”
In an effort to capture Iowa, Pawlenty had moved to the right of his moderate Republican stance on social issues.
Pawlenty was the first GOP contender to vow to undo repeal of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell,” the policy ending on September 20 that bans gays and bisexual troops from serving openly.
“We have to pay great deference, I think, to those combat units, their sentiments and their leaders,” he said during an appearance in Iowa at The Family Leader's Presidential Lecture Series. “That's one of the reasons why I said we shouldn't have repealed 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' and I would support reinstatement.”
He also attempted to boost his social conservative credentials by touting his opposition to gay marriage and the hand he played in advocating for a gay marriage ban in his home state.
“When I was in the Minnesota Legislature, I was a co-author of the Defense of Marriage Act defining marriage as between a man and a woman,” Pawlenty recently told the Miami Herald. “I support a state and federal amendment to the constitutions defining amendments as such.”
Gay marriage, he told State of the Union's Candy Crowley, “defies common sense” and is a “bad idea.” (The video is embedded in the right panel of this page.)
Meanwhile, after announcing his candidacy on Saturday in South Carolina – and perhaps stealing some of the thunder of other candidates attempting to court Iowa voters – Perry headed straight to first-in-the-nation primary state New Hamsphire.
Perry says he's “fine” with states deciding the issue, but supports a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
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