Pawlenty, Bachmann pin hopes on Iowa poll

Associated Press

AMES, Iowa

Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann, their presidential hopes on the line, made last-minute appeals Friday along with a slew of other Republican contenders ahead of a big weekend test in Iowa that could winnow the large field of GOP candidates. But the pack was expanding, too.

Today’s Iowa Straw Poll results will be the first important measure of the GOP pack — just as Texas Gov. Rick Perry officially makes it a bit larger and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin works energetically to keep her door open.

“I don’t want to step on anybody’s feet,” she said Friday — even as she did just that with a visit to the Iowa State Fair that was timed to keep her in the conversation as she weighs whether to enter the race.

Elsewhere, Perry was putting the final preparations on his announcement set for the weekend. He was giving a preview Friday night with a speech in Alabama.

In Iowa, it was a frenetic day of campaigning in the hours before the straw poll. Thursday night’s debate, though pointed at times, didn’t fundamentally change the dynamics of the race.

Four months before the leadoff Iowa caucuses, Mitt Romney leads national polls and many states’ surveys for the chance to challenge President Barack Obama next year. But there is no shortage of rivals looking to emerge as the top alternative to the former Massachusetts governor who lost the GOP nomination in 2008.

Among them are Pawlenty and Bachmann, Minnesota rivals who have the most at stake in today’s straw poll.

They went after each other during Thursday’s debate, and the tit-for-tat continued Friday.

“We’re not going to have a nominee or we’re not going to put somebody in the Oval Office who hasn’t achieved results during their service in Congress,” Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor, said of Bachmann as the day began. “Nobody’s questioning her spine; we’re questioning her lack of results.”

The Minnesota congresswoman, in turn, defended her record in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show, casting herself as a top opponent in the debate over Obama’s health-care plan and “the leading voice, almost the lone voice in the wilderness of Washington, fighting against raising the debt ceiling.”

Pawlenty, who has been languishing in early Iowa polls, is out to prove he’s a strong player in the GOP race with a victory Saturday, while Bachmann hopes to build on momentum she’s enjoyed since entering the race earlier this summer.