The Campaign Ends
Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota hugs supporters after she officially ended her bid for the Republican presidential nomination Jan. 4, 2012 in West Des Moines, Iowa.
Sorenson Call
Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann holds up her call log to show a record of an incoming call from one of her former key Iowa supporters, Kent Sorenson, Dec. 29, 2011 in Nevada, Iowa.
Back to School
Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota greets students during a Rock the Caucus event at Valley High School Jan. 3, 2012 in West Des Moines, Iowa.
Visit to Creston
Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann holds a town hall meeting in the central Iowa town of Creston, Oct. 22, 2011.
Minnesotan Smackdown
When the eight GOP candidates showed up in Ames, Iowa on August 11 for their second debate, Representative Michele Bachmann came out strong, defending her legislative work and touting her economic ideas. But her rival, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, jumped in to attack her governing results which he described as
... "nonexistent." So began a five-minute slap fest between the two candidates. Bachmann called herself the "tip of the spear" in the fight against President Obama's policies and compared Pawlenty to Obama. Game on. MORE
Queen of Rage
Michele Bachmann appears on the cover of
Newsweek with the title, "Queen of Rage." The controversial image drew criticism from the National Organization of Women who said that the magazine is failing to take a female Presidential contender seriously and from Miss America, Teresa Scanlan, who called it an example of "extreme
... sexism." On MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Newsweek's editor, Tina Brown, explained the magazine's rational: "Some people look at this picture and think Michele Bachmann looks crazy. Some people look at it and think it's the next president of the United States. The fact that these two things are no longer mutually exclusive is what I think makes it pretty compelling ... This is a very polarizing moment politics and this cover absolutely captures that moment." MORE
Tea Party Showstopper
Rep. Michele Bachmann addresses a luncheon at the national Press Club in Washington, DC. on July 28, 2011. Bachmann was among a small but vocal group of Republicans that vowed to not vote for any plan that would raise the debt ceiling. "The American people want someone who will stand up for them," Bachmann said. "They want
... someone who will say stop. They're looking for someone to say no. I will be that person who will say no more." MORE
Much Ado About Migraines
Presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann speaks at a press conference on the debt ceiling in Washington on July 13, 2011. When reports surfaced that Bachmann, 55, suffers from migraine headaches so intense she had sought emergency medical treatment at times, the Minnesota Congresswoman issued a statement reassuring the public of
... her physical fitness: "Let me be abundantly clear—my ability to function effectively has never been impeded by migraines and will not affect my ability to serve as Commander in Chief," she said on July 19.
MORE
Tea Party Patriot
Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann marches in a Fourth of July parade in Clear Lake, Iowa. The parade, a stop on her bus tour through the state, took place less than a week after the three-term Congresswoman announced her candidacy for President. The Iowa caucuses in February 2012 will be the first battle in the
... long fight for the Republican presidential nomination. MORE
Dancing in South Carolina
Bachmann waves to a large crowd outside Ripley’s Aquarium in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on June 28, 2011. Every presidential campaign stop is a performance, and Bachmann's visit to Myrtle Beach was no exception. Before leaving, Bachmann danced a few steps of “The Shag,” South Carolina's state dance, to the song
... "Walking on Sunshine," and signed campaign posters.
MORE
The Iowa Launch
Bachmann formally announces her candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on June 27, 2011, in her childhood hometown of Waterloo, Iowa. “I know what it means to be from Iowa,” Bachmann said in the strategically important caucus state. “The values that helped make Iowa the breadbasket of the world... those are
... the values—the best of all of us — that we must recapture to secure the promise of the future.” MORE
Minding the Media
The Minnesota congresswoman gives a radio interview by phone on June 27, 2011, after formally announcing her bid for the Republican presidential nomination in Waterloo, Iowa. Bachmann's political career has been marked by media blunders. In October 2006, she suggested that a sizable percentage of scientists don’t believe in
... evolution: "There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design." MORE
A Stay-at-Home Mom Gets Political
The candidate steals a quiet moment with her family after announcing her bid for the Republican presidential nomination on June 27, 2011. Bachmann has said her role as a mother spurred her to take a role in public life, and her first run for office was a failed bid for school board. A former tax attorney, Bachmann gave up the
... job to be a full-time mother when her fourth child, Caroline, was born. MORE
And the Winner Is …
Bachmann greets the audience after the first New Hampshire debate of the 2012 campaign, held at Saint Anselms College in Manchester on June 13, 2011. Bachmann made a splash in the debate by using her first answer to announce that she had formally filed the paperwork to run for President.
“Washington Is the Problem”
Bachmann supporters hold a sign outside Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., the venue for a debate among the 2012 GOP presidential hopefuls on June 13, 2011. Bachmann, a Tea Party favorite, has called the movement a “dynamic force for good in our national conversation.” "More than ever, Washington
is the problem. And
... the real solutions will come from our businesses, our communities, our schools and the most basic and powerful unit of all—our families,” she said.
MORE
Family Faith
Bachmann poses for a family portrait with her husband Marcus and their five children—Lucas, Harrison, Elisa, Caroline and Sophia— on June 10, 2011. “We had our five biological children that God gave to us, and then he called us to take foster children into our home,” she told a Christian audience in 2006, explaining why
... the couple became foster parents to 23 kids, many of them girls struggling with eating disorders.
MORE
Cuts Crusader
Bachmann speaks at a "Cut Spending Now" rally held by the advocacy group Americans for Prosperity outside the Capitol on April 6, 2011.
Tea Party Queen or Presidential Contender?
Bachmann signs an autograph for a supporter at an Americans for Prosperity rally on Capitol Hill on April 6, 2011. Although the Congresswoman had not yet declared her candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in April, many political analysts thought she would give it a shot.
Health Care Repeal Warrior
On Jan. 18, 2011, Bachmann joins Republican members of the House for a news conference, where they display petitions demanding a repeal of President Obama’s health care reform. The legislation, signed into law on March 23, 2010, will extend medical coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans. A day before the President signed
... the reform bill, Bachmann introduced her own bill to repeal it, writing that Obama and Democrats "have ignored the will of the people." MORE
Congressional Chuckles
The Congresswoman laughs with colleagues after Representative John Boehner is sworn in as Speaker of the House on Jan. 5, 2011, the inaugural day of the 112th U.S. Congress.
The Voters Have Spoken
Bachmann greets supporters at a rally on Capitol Hill organized by Americans for Progress, a group associated with the Tea Party movement, on Nov. 15, 2010. The rally’s objective, according to organizers, was to “send a clear message to Washington that voters have spoken this November and that politicians should not pursue
... Big Government policies in the lame-duck session."
MORE
Running to the Media
Bachmann jogs down Independence Avenue in Washington with a group congressmen and Tea Partyers to a news conference after the first meeting of the newly formed Tea Party Caucus on July 21, 2010. "We are not going to be the mouthpiece of the Tea Party," Bachmann told the press. "The people are the head of the Tea Party. We are
... here to listen, to be a receptacle."
MORE
Tea for Two
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin attends a re-election rally for Bachmann in Minneapolis on April 7, 2010. Potential competitors for the GOP nomination that appeal to similar constituencies, Bachmann and Palin were all smiles in their side-by-side appearance in Minnesota. But their relationship may have thawed since; in June,
... 2011, Bachmann adviser Ed Rollins told a radio intrviewer that “Sarah has not been serious over the last couple of years" and that Bachmann would be a "much more substantive" candidate. MORE
Fighting the “Killer Bill”
At a news conference and rally in front of the Capitol on Nov. 5, 2009, Bachmann joins thousands of protesters and other Republican Reps. in voicing opposition to Democratic health-reform legislation moving through Congress. Bachmann later declared that, “The bill that barely passed can only be described as a killer bill. It
... kills jobs, it kills opportunity, it kills promises that taxes won’t rise." MORE
Offering Praise
Bachmann pumps up the crowd at the Republican National Convention on Sept. 2, 2008, in St. Paul, Minn. Praising then GOP presidential nominee John McCain, she told the assembly that the Arizona Senator “not only recognizes that personal liberty needs elbow room. He's spent a lifetime ensuring that freedom has what it needs to
... grow.”
MORE
Mr. Marcus
Bachmann talks to her husband Marcus in Washington on Nov. 14, 2006. Michele met Marcus when they were undergraduates at Winona State University and married him two years later, in 1978. One of Michele’s closest political advisers, Marcus has faced close scrutiny for his unlicensed Christian counseling clinic.
A First for Minnesota
With her husband at her side, Bachmann delivers a speech in Bloomington after winning Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District on Nov. 7, 2006. She was the first Republican woman elected to represent Minnesota in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Social Issues at the Fore
Bachmann addresses Minnesota’s judiciary committee in Minneapolis on May 9, 2006, about an amendment to the state constitution that would recognize marriage as a union exclusively between a man and a woman. If elected President, Bachmann has said, she would push for a similar federal constitutional amendment.
Catch!
Bachmann laughs with her daughters on Dec. 27, 2004, at their home in Stillwater, Minn. They were trying to catch a bouquet thrown by Bachmann’s husband after the girls performed a “wedding” between an American Girl doll and a stuffed dalmatian toy.
Early Aspirations
Bachmann appears in the April 18, 1979, edition of her college newspaper, a year after she graduated from Winona State University. As an undergraduate, she served as a senate committee member, senator and vice president in the university’s government. Bachmann, who was a Democrat until college, has said she changed parties
... after reading Burr, Gore Vidal’s satirical novel about the Founding Fathers. MORE
Rocking Anoka High
Bachmann, then Michele Amble, pictured in her senior high school yearbook singing from a choir book. Bachmann graduated from Anoka High School in Anoka, Minn., in 1974. After graduation, she spent a summer working on a kibbutz in Israel.
Her First Elected Role
Bachmann, née Michele Amble, appears on the senior page of her 1974 high school yearbook. While a student at Anoka High School in Minnesota, she participated in cheerleading, chorus, drama club, gymnastics, prom committee, ski club, speech, student congress, student council and more.
Regal Bachmann
Bachmann, second from the left, pictured in her 1973 Anoka high school yearbook with other members of homecoming royalty.
V Is for Victory
Bachmann (front row, center) poses for a portrait with her high school cheerleading squad. The photo was taken in 1973, when she was a junior at Anoka High School in Minnesota.
“When I Grow Up, I Want to Be President”
Bachmann, here a high school sophomore in 1972, is seated front and center with other members of the student congress of Anoka High School in Minnesota. The yearbook page’s headline reads, “When I grow up, I want to be President." Also pictured is then governor of Minnesota, Democrat Wendall Anderson.
