Bachmann 2016?
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is floating another run for president.
The failed 2012 presidential contender told Real Clear Politics on Tuesday, in response to a question on whether any GOP women would run in 2016, that she could be one of them.
“The only thing that the media has speculated on is that it’s going to be various men that are running,” she said. “They haven’t speculated, for instance, that I’m going to run. What if I decide to run? And there’s a chance I could run.”
{mosads}In the interview, Bachmann also slammed presumed Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, saying she has “fatal problems” from her time at the State Department that should “disqualify” her from the presidency.
Bachmann’s 2012 bid peaked early, when she won the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa in August of 2011, buoyed by social conservative and Tea Party support. But after a handful of damaging debates and the departure of some of her key staff members, Bachmann went on to finish sixth in the Iowa caucuses the next year.
She’s retiring from Congress this year, and while she said she’s looking at “a lot of different options” for her life after she leaves Congress, Bachmann also gave a handful of reasons why she considers herself a formidable presidential contender, if she runs in 2016.
“Like with anything else, practice makes perfect,” she said. “And I think if a person has gone through the process — for instance, I had gone through 15 presidential debates — it’s easy to see a person’s improvement going through that.”
Bachmann also touted herself as “one of the top — if not the top — fundraisers in the history of the United States Congress.”
“And it’s because people saw that I had an authentic voice, and I was fighting for them,” she said. “I wasn’t speaking to them like a politician. I was speaking like a real person who was fighting for what they believed in.”
If she runs again, she said she’d build a better staff, but she also told Real Clear Politics she won’t start thinking about the decision in earnest until she finishes her current term in the House.
“I haven’t made a decision one way or another if I’m going to run again, but I think the organization is probably the key,” she said. “To have an organization and people who surround you who are loyal, who are highly competent, who know how to be able to run the ball down the field in state after state — because now I think the primary process will be very different this time. It will tighten up; it will be a much shorter run than it was before.”
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