Michele Bachmann: A conservative force for 2012

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on Monday announced during the GOP presidential debate in New Hampshire that she had filed paperwork to seek the presidency--then set about showing the American people just why she'll be a formidable contender.

"President Obama is a one-term president," she declared during Monday's debate, drawing wide applause just minutes after announcing she had filed to run.

"I want to make a promise to everyone watching tonight: As president of the United States, I will not rest until I repeal Obamacare. It's a promise. Take it to the bank, cash the check. I'll make sure that that happens," Bachmann later stated.

Bachmann made clear Monday she plans to capitalize on existing anger and dissatisfaction among American voters--hallmarks of the tea party movement that has helped make her a national political star.

The tea party and Bachmann were a great fit from the start.

Bachmann, a former IRS tax lawyer, is a fiscal and social conservative, a strong defender of the Constitution who has readily bucked her party's establishment.

Bachmann was born April 6, 1956 in Waterloo, Iowa--the location where she plans to make her formal campaign announcement later this month--into a Democratic family. Here family later moved to Anoka, Minnesota, where she grew up. She met her husband, Marcus Bachmann, at Winona State University while both were volunteering for Democrat Jimmy Carter.

Bachmann, who is an evangelical Lutheran, also became involved with her husband in the "pro-life" movement, praying outside of abortion clinics and serving as sidewalk counselors. But Bachmann says her political views changed during her senior year when she read "Burr" by Gore Vidal and was upset by what she felt was his mocking of the Founding Fathers.

"And at that point I put the book down and I laughed," Bachmann explained to a group of Michigan Republicans last December. "I was riding a train. I looked out the window and I said, 'You know what? I think I must be a Republican. I don't think I'm a Democrat.'"

Bachmann says she also felt disappointed in the Democratic party's abortion stance.

Carving out her own path was nothing new for Bachmann. The congresswoman got her start in politics by bucking Minnesota's education system. After she grew increasingly dissatisfied with her foster children's public school educations (she and her husband fostered a total of 23 children over the years, in addition to raising their own five children) she helped found a charter school in 1993. That project prompted her to run for the local school board in 1999. She lost that race but successfully won election to the Minnesota state senate the following year.

In 2006, Bachmann won election to the House, becoming the first Republican woman to win election to that body from Minnesota.

Since she joined Congress, Bachmann has sparked controversy on several fronts, often in connection with her strongly held evangelical beliefs. When Minnesota parents got word that her publicly funded charter school was incorporating some religious influences into its curricula, they began to complain. Bloomberg reports that one parent protested when a teacher had banned Disney movie "Aladdin" because of its elements of magic. Others complained that an American-Indian themed art project was "nixed," according to Bloomberg, and there were discussions about mandating prayer and religious subjects in students' coursework.

Three months after the school opened, "Bachmann and four other board members resigned when presented with the parents' concerns" one parent told the news outlet.

When she had served in the state legislature, Bachmann tried for years to pass a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in Minnesota. The effort drew significant criticism from the left and ultimately failed. Still, Bachmann's public advocacy for the measure, cheered by her supporters, was largely responsible for her trajectory to Congress.

Bachmann holds strongly conservative beliefs when it comes to abortion and homosexuality. She has expressed the belief that homosexuality can be learned. Bachmann and her husband continue to run a Christian counseling organization that has been accused of trying to help turn gay people straight. Marcus Bachmann has denied that charge--though he has suggested acceptance of homosexuality can "cause" it.

In Congress, Bachmann has drawn attention for speaking her mind--which has won her admirers, together with criticism (and some ridicule) for hyperbole and misstatements of fact.

In Feb. 2007, Bachmann stated that Iran planned to "partition Iraq" to make half of it into a "terorrist safe haven zone." She later said her comments had been "misconstrued."

During an Oct. 2008 appearance on MSNBC's "Hardball" Bachmann said "I'm very concerned that [Barack Obama] may have anti-American views," during a discussion about Obama's connections to 1960s radical Bill Ayers. Bachmann received significant criticism for the remark and later stated she did not question Obama's patriotism.

In 2009, Bachmann followed up on comments made by Rush Limbaugh, suggesting Democratic presidents could be blamed for swine flu outbreaks. "I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter," Bachmann told PajamasTV, even though the swine flu outbreak of 1976 happened under Republican Gerald Ford. "And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."

Those and other comments have earned Bachmann a reputation on the Hill and nationwide for being unpredictable and misinformed--one reason why she was not GOP leaders' first choice to lead their House Conference during Nov. 2010 selection discussions. (She was beat out for that post by the Republican leadership's preferred candidate, Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling.)

Though she may not be an establishment favorite, Bachmann has found a home within the tea party, where leaders such as the Tea Party Express' Amy Kremer say they value her passion and her conviction.

"You can tell the ones who have the passion, the fire in the belly and are truly speaking from the heart. She's one of those," Kremer told the Associated Press in May. "That comes through."

Bachmann was chosen to give a tea party response to the president's State of the Union address this past January--separate from the GOP establishment's response.

Bachmann has made clear that her campaign will stress many items on the tea party's agenda, including smaller government and lower spending. In that vein, she made a case in Monday's presidential debate to eliminate the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

But she departs from the core principles of the tea party with her strong social conservative agenda. Many tea partiers, including leaders of the Tea Party Express, have divided themselves from social issues in favor of focusing on fiscal policies.

But regardless of how Bachmann's views pan out among the tea party faithful, the candidate has made clear that she believes tea-party support will bring her to the top.

"I think I've been extremely effective to bring that voice here, in the halls of Congress, and to have that voice known, and now I want to take that voice to the White House," Bachmann told the MinnPost this week. "That's what the difference will be. I've been here fighting these fights, people know that I'm going to do what I say I'm going to do, but also I think that I'm very much in tune with where the Tea Party is at and I intend to take that voice to the White House."

(Photo of Bachmann: Jim Cole/AP)

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