With Obama squarely in its sights, Tea Party gets going

The 2012 US Presidential campaign is warming up, with Republican candidates lining up to decide who is best placed to defeat Barack Obama in next year’s election. In the first big test of the campaign,  Michele Bachmann, a charismatic Congresswoman from Minnesota, narrowly won a straw poll of Republicans in Iowa on Saturday. Congressman Ron Paul from Texas, a libertarian with unorthodox views on US foreign policy and economic policy who has thus far run a spartan campaign, finished a surprising second. These are still early days in the campaign, and in any case the Iowa straw poll is only a non-binding mock election,  but it it is nevertheless a traditional early gauge of organisational strength in the state that holds the first 2012 nominating contest. And the early signs point to the rise of the Tea Party movement, the bottom-up grassroots-level anti-establishment movement that has rewritten the political discourse in the two years since it was born. [caption id=“attachment_60706” align=“alignright” width=“380” caption=“Michele Bachmann has set herself up as a frontrunner to secure the Republican party nomination for the 2012 presidential election. Jeff Haynes / Reuters”]  [/caption] It also represents the mainstreaming of what was once considered a fringe movement on the far right, and could set the tone for the 2012 presidential contest with Obama. In recent weeks, and particularly after the downgrade of US sovereign ratings, Obama’s popularity rating has plummeted, and he is increasingly being seen even by his traditional Democratic supporters as having been not forceful enough in taking on the Republican far right. Also on Saturday, Texas Governor Rick Perry formally launched his White House bid, and looks set to  reshape the race.  He announced his candidacy in South Carolina with a blistering attack on  Obama. “We cannot afford four more years of this rudderless leadership,” Perry told a conference of conservatives, promising to reduce taxes, regulations and government intrusion in people’s lives. In the Iowa straw poll, Bachmann won 4,823 votes to Paul’s 4,671. In distant third place was Tim Pawlenty, who had focussed on a strong showing in the straw poll to rescue his struggling campaign; he won only 2,293 votes in what’s seen  a bruising setback. The straw poll and Perry’s campaign launch, coming less than six months before Iowa’s nominating contest, promised to reshuffle the Republican field fighting for the nomination to challenge Obama, a Democrat, in 2012. Perry, a staunch social conservative with a strong job creation record in Texas, is expected to immediately vault into the top tier of contenders along with front-runner former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Perry visits Iowa on Sunday. Perry finished sixth in the straw poll with 718 write-in votes even though he was not on the ballot. That was more than Romney, who was on the ballot and received 567 votes even though he did not participate. Six Republicans had participated in the poll, pleading for support from voters who rolled into the site in dozens of buses and jammed candidate tents for music and free barbecue. Lines were long at the tents hosted by Pawlenty and Bachmann, who competed for the votes of the social conservatives who dominate the Iowa nominating contest. Supporters of libertarian Paul swarmed the grounds and jammed the arena when he spoke. The poll, a fund-raiser for the state party, created a carnival atmosphere around Iowa State University’s basketball arena. Any Iowa resident over 18 could show up and participate, with many allowing a candidate to buy their $30 ticket. Candidates organised buses to haul in supporters from around the state in a warm-up for the organisational effort needed in the Iowa caucuses, scheduled for February 6. Finishing fourth was former Senator Rick Santorum, with businessman Herman Cain in fifth ahead of Perry. With inputs from Reuters