Candidates who go all-in but fall well short in Ames typically find it difficult to raise money, and without personal wealth to fall back on, Mr. Pawlenty decided to cut his losses and bow out. In addition, the entry of Texas Gov. Rick Perry into the race Saturday, combined with Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann’s victory in the straw poll, has shifted the focus to their expected battle for the hearts and minds of conservatives.
As things look now, the weekend scrambling of the race highlights three top players: Governor Perry, Congresswoman Bachmann, and Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts.
There may be a longer-than-usual slog toward a winner than Republicans are used to. Perry enters the race as a top-tier candidate, second in national polls of GOP voters only to Mr. Romney. Bachmann was already placing third in polls, even before her victory in the Iowa straw poll Saturday, and has now solidified her status as a major contender.
Each of the three has planted a flag in different early-contest states: Bachmann in Iowa, Romney in New Hampshire, and Perry in South Carolina, where he announced his candidacy. Of the three, it’s easiest to see Romney holding onto his first-place perch in New Hampshire, which he has been cultivating for years, and where his low-key approach on social issues fits the Northeastern sensibility.
Bachmann begins the race to win the first nominating contest – the Iowa caucuses in early 2012 – as the favorite. She leaned heavily on her Iowa roots in her straw poll speech, with a nary a hint that she has lived in Minnesota most of her life. More important, her evangelical Christian faith and tea party activism make her a good fit for Iowa Republicans, where the party is dominated by social conservatives who have embraced the tea party’s low-tax, small-government message.
But Perry has the potential to knock Bachmann off her Iowa perch. He, too, speaks freely of his evangelical Christian beliefs, is popular with some tea partyers, but also has close ties to the national GOP establishment, which Bachmann does not have. He can also trump her on experience: He has been governor of Texas for more than 10 years and has presided over strong job creation. Since entering politics, Bachmann has only been a legislator and, as Pawlenty charged in the GOP debate last Thursday, has a thin record of accomplishment.
It’s a swing district and it's a district that elected Gov. Jesse Ventura, and so I’ve been able to attract a lot of people to vote for me who are Democrats and independents," Bachmann said. "That’s what we have to do. This won’t be just a conservative election, this is really going to be an economics election. People will want to know who can turn the country around that will be the big question.”
Contrasting her record with Perry’s, Bachmann argued that she is "a proven, effective advocate in Washington DC against the issues people really care about."
"I’ve been on the front lines,” she continued. "I was the first member of Congress to introduce the repeal of Obamacare; Dodd-Frank; I led for the last two months against raising the debt ceiling, against the TARP vote."
"Issue after issue after issue, I've been at the tip of the spear and I’ve been a champion for people on these issues," she said. "I've been the fighter."
Meanwhile Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who announced his president bid Saturday in South Carolina, continued his swing through New Hampshire before heading to Iowa later today where he will share a stage with Bachmann.
During an interview with WMUR-TV in New Hampshire, Perry took an early swipe at Mitt Romney’s record on jobs as governor of Massachusetts. During Romney’s years in office, Massachusetts ranked near the bottom of the 50 states in job creation – with a percentage increase of about 1%, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Perry said voters should look at Romney’s track record as governor of Massachusetts against his years as governor in Texas. "Mine doesn’t need any propping up. We’ll just let it stand it there and let people examine it."
The fact is this race is going to be about jobs; this is going to be about who can create an environment where people know that they can take care of their families," Perry said in the interview when asked about his record compared to others in the field.
I happen to think that I'm as qualified, or better qualified, than anyone in the field to not only make that claim, but to lay out that vision and then lay out those principles that have worked well in Texas. We’ve created more jobs than any other state in the nation. As a matter of fact in the last two years, we’ve created almost half of all the jobs created in America.
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