Michele Bachmann makes it official in Waterloo …
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, from the 6th congressional district, formally announced her political intentions on Monday morning in the city of her birth – Waterloo, Iowa. She is a candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
The outspoken supporter of the Tea Party movement was running in a virtual dead heat with party favorite Mitt Romney in a weekend Iowa poll organized by the Des Moines Register. He received 23 percent to her 22 percent, a fact that gives her credibility as she begins her bid.
She’ll tour Iowa, New Hampshire and North Carolina over the next three days.
In a speech before her hometown crowd, she said: “I grew up a Democrat. My first involvement in politics was working for Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976. But when I saw the direction President Carter took this country; how his big spending liberal majority grew government, I became a Republican.”
She went on to say: “I hadn’t planned on getting into politics. I loved the law and went to law school. I went on to William and Mary to become a tax lawyer. I didn’t seek public office for fortune or power, but simply to make life better in our community and education better for our children.”
Bachmann wrapped her speech with: “I’m Michele Bachmann and I’m running for President of the United States.”
Check out the video report below: