U.S. Republican race jolted by Iowa poll

Bachmann tops test vote for 2012, Texas Gov. Rick Perry announces his candidacy


AMES, Iowa (AP) ― The 2012 Republican presidential race heated up Saturday as latecomer Texas Gov. Rick Perry formally announced his candidacy and Iowans weighed in for the first time on their expanding field of presidential hopefuls, picking U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann as their top choice for the party’s nomination.

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!”

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 criticized “broken” Washington, which he said mismanaged its finances and levied undue regulation on people’s lives and businesses. He slammed the deal struck by Obama and congressional leaders last week to raise the debt ceiling; a downgrade of the nation’s credit rating by a leading ratings agency came just days later.

“This is just the most recent downgrade,” Perry said. “The fact is for nearly three years President Obama has been downgrading American jobs. He’s been downgrading our standing in the world. He’s been downgrading our financial stability. He’s been downgrading our confidence, and downgrading the hope for a better future for our children.”

Perry’s nationally televised announcement of his candidacy in the first-in-the-South primary state of South Carolina came ― not coincidently ― on the same day as the Iowa straw poll, and his entrance in the field capped a remarkable turn of events.

As recently as a few months ago, Perry foreswore any interest in running for president.

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.

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.