Michele Bachmann comes out of GOP debate in ‘overdrive’. Ramping up Campaign in New Hampshire.
New Hampshire Union Leader ^ | 06/16/2011 | JOHN DiSTASO
BACHMANN’S OVERDRIVE. Coming off of a strong showing — if not an outright victory — in Monday night’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary debate, Minnesota U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann is trying to parlay that momentum into the beginnings of a grassroots New Hampshire campaign.
She has been getting help for months now from long-time friend and radio talk show host Jeff Chidester, who will continue to “give her advice” and has been asked to take a stronger role, “which we will talk about” in the coming days, he says.
Now that she has officially become a candidate, three more Granite State activists have joined her team and Chidester says more are on the way.
Mattheu LeDuc is Bachmann’s New Hampshire director of operations. He was a volunteer field operative for John McCain’s state campaign in 2008 and has worked in Massachusetts as an intern for former Gov. Paul Cellucci, then with Gov. Jane Swift’s campaign, and later on Mitt Romney’s transition team when Romney was elected governor.
In 2009 and 2010, LeDuc worked on current New Hampshire GOP Chairman Jack Kimball’s campaign for governor.
Caroline Gigler is Bachmann’s Southern New Hampshire field director. She was the Seacoast regional field coordinator for the New Hampshire Republican Party’s Victory program during the 2010 elections.
Tom Lukacz ran the Kimball campaign for governor in 2010 and was a key member of his team when he ran successfully for the party chairmanship.
Chidester says that “high-profile” Granite Staters are ready to sign on as well. And he said the Bachmann debate viewing party at the Puritan Back Room in Manchester was packed.
“It’s thrilling,” Chidester said of the debate. “That was the Michele Bachmann I’ve known for five years and it was great to see.”
He said she has the potential to run a successful campaign in New Hampshire.
“She has a lot of the same characteristics that we find important, and a lot of the same things we find in leaders that we can respect,” he said.
WINNERS AND LOSERS. Now that a few days have passed and the national gurus have had their say on the debate, here’s our New Hampshire-centric view of the first major event of the primary campaign.
While Bachmann gained the most traction from the debate by introducing herself to New Hampshire with comparatively decisive answers on fiscal, political and social issues, Romney was also a winner — by not losing.
He entered the debate as the frontrunner by far; and nothing that occurred in the debate — either by his own doing or by others — changed that status.
He held his own. He made no gaffes. He defended his Massachusetts health care law exactly as he had been doing in the previous weeks.
Romney won mainly because no one else laid a glove on him. And no one really tried, which was surprising.
We didn’t expect a bloodbath. We didn’t expect the other candidates, far less well-known than Romney, to introduce themselves to New Hampshire and the nation in a negative way by bashing another contender.
But we expected more distinctions to be drawn. So, when Tim Pawlenty backed off, refusing to press Romney on “Obamneycare” after coining the phrase on “Meet the Press” the previous day, Romney won that round — and Pawlenty lost it.
That’s really the only memorable Pawlenty “moment,” and it was a negative Pawlenty moment. Lucky for him, he has plenty of time to recover.
Bachmann, on the other hand, became the Minnesotan with momentum.
She articulated the Tea Party’s goals well. She answered our question about same-sex marriage versus the 10th Amendment and states’ rights specifically, saying, that although she opposes same-sex marriage and would support a constitutional amendment to that effect, “I’m running for the presidency of the United States. And I don’t see that it’s the role of a President to go into states and interfere with their state laws.”
Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich comported themselves effectively, but each needed to stand out more in order to begin to gain traction in New Hampshire. Herman Cain was, as one activist put it to us, “off his game,” and Ron Paul was — well — Ron Paul, the libertarian conscience of the group.
It remains to be seen if Paul’s showing helped him expand his base at all.
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I like her a lot better than Romney - thats for sure.
