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Subscribe to RSSFriday's Deep Dive features NBC's Luke Russert giving a special look at Michelle Bachmann's uphill reelection battle for her House seat in Minnesota. MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry, Republican strategist Phil Musser, and The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus also join the discussion.
Bachmann steps closer to endorsing Romney
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday morning, Rep. Michele Bachmann said she is “seriously looking into” endorsing presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The remarks are the closest the former GOP presidential candidate and Minnesota congresswoman has come to making an endorsement since dropping out of the race on Jan. 4.
Citing the decision by Romney’s chief rival – former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum – to suspend his campaign last Tuesday, Bachmann said there is a “uniting and pulling together around our eventual nominee.”
“I have said that I want my voice to be one of uniting our party, the independents, the main stream, the conservatives, evangelicals, the tea party movement,” Bachmann continued, adding, “I’m waiting for our party to come together and help in that process.”
Bachmann’s ecumenical view was not as pronounced during her own run for the GOP nomination, which was marked by frequent shots at Romney over the health care program he launched in Massachusetts in 2006.
Sunday morning, jousting with New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Bachmann called Romney “smart” on job creation.
“Mitt Romney also understands how to turn around companies," she said. "The United States government needs to have a turnaround person who knows how to be successful."
Underlying the back-and-forth was the controversy that stoked hours of cable news coverage this week, when a Democratic strategist suggested that Romney’s wife, Ann, was unqualified to advise her husband on the economic struggles facing women because she had “never worked a day in her life.”
Bachmann called the remarks by the strategist, Hilary Rosen, “shocking and insulting.”
“When 92-percent of the people under Barack Obama’s failed economic policies are women who’ve lost jobs, that’s an unbelievably shocking number,” Bachmann added, reviving a statistic Romney himself used last week, which prompted a slew of fact check pieces.
(The statistic also came under fire minutes earlier on the broadcast, during an interview with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who called it “ridiculous and deeply misleading.”)
Facts, figures, and controversies aside, the exchange this morning seemed to underscore the degree to which both Republicans and Democrats view women’s votes as crucial in the upcoming general election.
“This election is not going to be about Ann Romney or Hillary’s remarks,” Gillibrand said. “What this election is going to be about is which candidate fights for America’s women.”
Bachmann didn't immediately respond but when she did, she said, "One thing that women are saying is that Mitt Romney is an extremely smart guy. He's been successful in creating jobs in the private economy, and that's something that Barack Obama has not been able to do."
Bachmann tells supporters she's staying in the race
Michele Bachmann speaks to supporters in Iowa after a poor showing in caucus votes, reiterating her criticisms of President Obama.
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa – Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachman told a room of about 65 supporters Tuesday that she’s staying in the race for president, despite her weak showing in the Iowa caucuses.
“The pundits and the press will again try and pick the nominee based on tonight’s results, but there are many more chapters to be written on the path to our party’s nomination,” Bachmann said.
Bachmann finished last in the caucuses, with 5 per cent of the vote, bookending a journey in Iowa that was marked by an early surge in polls, and a win in August at the state Republican Party’s straw poll.
Despite the stunning reversal of fortune, Bachmann pressed her case Tuesday as a “fearless conservative,” with “no compromises” on key issues, including cutting spending and “standing with our ally, Israel.”
“I believe that I am that true conservative who can and who will defeat Barack Obama in 2012,” Bachmann said.
Joshua Lott / Reuters
Republican presidential candidate and Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on the Iowa campaign trail
Her remarks capped a tense evening inside a Marriott hotel ballroom, where a thin crowd of supporters watched returns come in on a large television monitor, while campaign staff sat on a sofa in the hallway, tapping messages on smart phones.
“We’re disappointed, but we’re very proud of Michele, because she sticks to her core principles,” said Rich Heki, a Bachmann supporter, and the husband of a member the campaign’s Iowa staff.
Bachmann spent the early evening in her childhood city of Cedar Falls, where she addressed voters at Iowa’s largest caucus location, on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa.
Earlier, she dropped in to an MTV “Rock the Caucus” event at a high school here in West Des Moines, where she answered questions from reporters.
Asked if she would continue past Iowa in the event of a disappointing finish in the caucuses, Bachmann set her sights on South Carolina.
“We're confident – that's why we bought our tickets for South Carolina,” Bachmann said. “We're moving on, and we're moving forward. Because this election is far from over. This is the opening chapter.”
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Tears and some confessions from GOP candidates at Iowa forum
Charlie Neibergall/AP
Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks during the Thanksgiving Family Forum sponsored by The Family Leader as former CEO of Godfathers Pizza Herman Cain looks on Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa.
By NBC's Carrie Dann, Alex Moe, Andrew Rafferty and James Novogrod
DES MOINES, Iowa -- At an emotional two-hour forum focused as much on the candidate's personal and spiritual lives as on their policies, six Republican candidates spoke at length Saturday about their faith but skirted direct discussion of misconduct by either twice-divorced Newt Gingrich or Herman Cain, who has faced allegations of sexual harassment.
During the Des Moines forum sponsored by the Family Leader group and moderated by pollster Frank Luntz, Gingrich disclosed a time in the 1990s when he felt that he was "failing personally," even turning to the Alcoholics Anonymous handbook because he felt "truly hollow."
"I wasn't drinking but I had precisely the symptoms of somebody who was collapsing under this weight," he said after Luntz directed candidates to "bare your soul."
The former House speaker, who has previously disclosed that he was engaging in an extramarital affair with his current wife while prosecuting the Clinton impeachment, acknowledged Saturday that his struggles "required a great deal of pain."
"I've been very blessed. Callista and I have a wonderful marriage," he said, going on to describe his closeness to his children. "But all of that has required a great deal of pain, some of which I have caused others, which I regret deeply. All of which required having to go to God to seek both reconciliation but also to seek God's acceptance that I had to recognize how limited I was and how much I had to depend on Him."
Earlier in the forum, Gingrich won the biggest laugh of the night for telling Occupy Wall Street protesters to "go get a job right after you take a bath."
In a rare moment, Cain, who typically sticks to displays of humor and defiance on the campaign trail, choked up when talking about his wife, Gloria, and the struggle he faced with cancer.
When Cain received his diagnosis, he said, he told his wife "I can do this." She replied "WE can do this," he said of his wife of 42 years, who accompanied her husband to the forum for her first campaign appearance in Iowa this weekend.
Cain later struggled past tears in describing one consequence of his business success. "I didn't believe that I was home enough when my kids were growing up," he said.
The Atlanta businessman made no mention of at least four women who have accused him of sexual impropriety. He said Saturday that he believes he has experienced a "series of little failures rather than one great big disaster."
Also shedding tears Saturday was Rick Santorum, who delivered an emotional recounting of his disabled daughter's struggles for life. "I had seen her as less of a person because of her disability," the former Pennsylvania senator confessed when describing one moment when his daughter's life was in danger.
Rick Perry, telling a familiar story about the academic failures that prevented him from achieving his dream of becoming a veterinarian, smiled broadly when delivering a line that could perhaps also apply to the rocky start of his once soaring campaign.
"If you want to see God laugh, tell him your plans," Perry said.
The Texas governor related details of his humble biography, saying that his presence on the stage after growing up in near-poverty was "a stunning story of America." He discussed, as he did at a speech at Liberty University in September, a period of time when he felt "lost" and "too busy for God" before turning to Christ at age 27.
The unusual format -- with the six candidates seated around a table topped with Thanksgiving accoutrements -- allowed each candidate to offer lengthy responses to questions about gay marriage, abortion, morality, and the role of faith in public life.
While largely focused on the candidate's philosophical views, the candidates also discussed their view of the federal government through the prism of morality.
"The states have a right to be wrong," Rep. Ron Paul alleged, dovetailing on a back-and-forth he had with Gingrich about the meaning of "liberty." "The Constitution is a restriction on the federal government, not a restriction on the states."
Rep. Michele Bachmann spoke about her views of the spiritual nature of the oath of office, relating a story disputed by some historians that George Washington added the words "so help me God" and kissed the Bible upon delivering them. (The Bachmann campaign pushed back via Twitter on questions about the anecdote's veracity, citing author David McCullough.)
Bachmann also separately attacked Gingrich on his abortion record.
Republican frontrunner Gov. Mitt Romney, along with longshot Gov. John Huntsman, was notably absent from the Iowa forum, choosing instead to conduct a fiery town hall in New Hampshire. While the other candidates declined to take shots at the absent former Massachusetts governor, moderator Frank Luntz did take a dig at Romney, noting that he was not present to respond to critiques of the individual mandate for health care, an idea included in the plan he signed into law in 2006.
Romney’s absence was also noted by event organizer Bob Vander Plaats, who told reporters after the forum, “Romney was the only one who stiffed us.”
“I think that’s gone with his persona, in how he’s treating Iowa, which happens to be a swing state,” Vander Plaats added. “And he wants to win the presidency -- which tells me he lacks judgment.”