GOP race jolted with Iowa poll, Perry entry

As it has at many of Michele Bachmann’s previous campaign stops this year, the loudspeaker on the Bachmann bus played Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere” on Saturday as a crowd of journalists and supporters waited for the winner of the Ames Republican Straw Poll to make her victory statement.


Followers erupted in cheers as Bachmann, obscured from most observers because of the crush of cameras and microphones, stepped out of the bus just after 6 p.m.


“We did this together,” said Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota. “What we saw is the first step toward taking the White House.


“Today, we sent a message to Barack Obama that he will be a one … term … president.”


Bachmann led the crowd in the same chant she’d done during her speech earlier in the day in Hilton Coliseum.


Bachmann received 4,823 votes, or 28.55 percent of nearly the nearly 17,000 votes cast. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, of Texas, finished second, with 4,671 votes, or 27.65 percent of the vote.


The Straw Poll victory crowned the effort Bachmann has made in recent months at campaign stops across the state, including at the Story County Fair in mid-July. On that afternoon, Bachmann attracted about 50 curious voters, but she will draw far larger crowds when she campaigns now as the victor in the nation’s largest straw poll to date.


“We’ve made a down payment on taking the country back,” Bachmann said. “Now it’s on to all 50 states.”


Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty finished a distant third with 2,293 votes, disappointing results for a campaign that spent a lot of money and time working in Iowa.


“We have a lot more work to do,” Pawlenty said, making clear he wasn’t dropping out despite a disappointing finish. “We are just beginning, and I’m looking forward to a great campaign.”


Former U.S. senator Rick Santorum finished fourth. He was one of the earliest candidates to visit Iowa, first showing up in the spring of 2010. Santorum, who got 1,657 votes, said he was happy with the results.


“The people who finished ahead of us each spent well over $1 million,” Santorum said. “We carried out our campaign on a very thin budget. But we hit 50 cities in Iowa and got our message across.”


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 favorite 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 percent 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!"
First Read analysis: Bachmann remains the Iowa front-runner
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.
From Iowa to South Carolina on Saturday, Republican candidates used their perches before party activists in two critical early presidential nominating voting states to castigate the Democratic incumbent and offer themselves as the answer to an ailing America.
In Charleston, South Carolina, Perry, the longest-serving governor in the nation's second largest state delivered a withering attack on Obama in his first speech as a full-fledged presidential candidate to a gathering of conservative bloggers. He later traveled to New Hampshire, where the nation's first primary is held.


He reversed course after it became clear that the Republican establishment wasn't rallying around any single candidate and that many in the party's base had reservations about their choices, including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, until now the front-runner in early polls four years after losing his first presidential campaign.
Perry is viewed as one of the few Republican candidates who can unite disparate elements of the Republican coalition. He has the backing of many supporters of the small government, low tax tea party movement, and is popular among social conservatives for his opposition to abortion and gay rights. He is also an evangelical Christian and hosted a prayer rally last weekend in Texas that drew thousands of attendees.
Even before he officially entered the race, some polls of Republicans showed Perry running only a few percentage points behind Romney and well positioned to emerge as the top alternative from the party's conservative wing to the former Massachusetts governor.
Perry can go head-to-head with Romney on the issue of job creation, a key issue in the upcoming campaign. Through three terms as Texas governor, Perry has overseen significant job growth in his state while working to keep taxes low. Romney has touted his extensive background as a businessman to persuade voters he can turn the economy around.
Challenge for Bachmann
At the same time, Perry can challenge Bachmann for support among social conservatives and tea party activists, but can also cite his executive experience as Texas governor, which the three-term Minnesota congresswoman lacks. The party's staunchest conservatives are wary of Romney's past support as Massachusetts governor for gay and abortion rights and a health care reform package used by Obama as a model for legislation that Republicans loathe. Evangelical Christians look askance at Romney's Mormon faith.
Perry has spent the past few weeks assembling a national finance team supporters say could rival Obama's. The president is on track to match or exceed the record-breaking $750 million he raised in 2008.
But Perry has never run a national campaign before, and his deeply conservative views may not sit well with voters in some parts of the country. His candidacy will also be a test of whether Americans are ready to elect as president another Texas governor, so soon after former President George W. Bush left office with record low approval ratings.