Congresswoman Michele Bachmann had success once in Iowa, and now she’s betting she can parlay her Iowa roots and last month’s Straw Poll win into a caucus victory this winter.
Starting this weekend, she “plans to campaign almost exclusively in the state as she tries to reassert herself in a race that’s become a two-candidate contest between Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney,” reports AP.
Says the story:
The hope among Bachmann advisers is that an Iowa victory could propel her to the South Carolina primary, where Republican voters resemble Iowa’s heavy segment of Christian conservatives. She spent a chunk of the past month in the state, as well as in Florida, courting tea party activists and other conservatives.
But the renewed focus on Iowa — she plans to spend much of the next five months there — means Bachmann is likely to bypass Nevada’s under-the-radar caucuses and remain scarce in New Hampshire, where she has almost no organization in place for the first-in-the-nation primary.
But even in Iowa, she’s got some work to do:
Some Iowa Republicans recently criticized Bachmann for staying on her campaign bus during a county GOP dinner while Perry was speaking. The episode fed a budding narrative that Bachmann pays more attention to stagecraft than mingling with activists, something that doesn’t sit well with Iowans used to politicians doing retail campaigning.
“Her campaign has to drop this rock-star motif,” said Judd Saul, an undecided Iowa Republican who attended the event last month. “She won the straw poll but needs to dig in, shake our hands, get to know us.”
