Tea Party diva Bachmann dazzles at US debate

Michele Bachmann, a leading light of the staunchly conservative Tea Party movement, stole the show at the first major Republican debate, stepping boldly into the 2012 White House race.

All smiles, the 55-year-old congresswoman, surrounded by six male candidates, challenged US President Barack Obama on everything from health reform and the soaring US deficit to the military intervention in Libya.

But while hailing her performance at the New Hampshire debate, experts expressed doubt over whether the Tea Party favorite can appeal to moderates in a general election where candidates race to the center.

"Bachmann appeared to handle herself well in the debate, especially given the low expectations. One can now imagine her winning Iowa," said Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, referring to the conservative state that will host a crucial early contest in February 2012.

"It?s much more difficult imagining her as president."

Like the other Republican candidates, she took aim at Obama's landmark health care reforms, saying: "As president of the United States, I will not rest until I repeal Obamacare. It's a promise."  

"I want to announce tonight: President Obama is a one-term president," she told the audience at the New Hampshire debate on Monday night.

Her presence was shadowed, however, by the absence of her most obvious competitor -- Tea Party celebrity and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who has yet to say whether she will enter the race.

Like Palin, Bachmann is well-known to her rivals for a series of gaffes -- she once quipped that the opening battles of the US revolutionary war took place in New Hampshire and not Massachusetts.

But there were no such missteps Monday, as she drew roars of applause for affirming core Republican positions, like opposition to abortion.

"I've given birth to five babies, and I've taken 23 foster children into my home. I believe in the dignity of life from conception until natural death. I believe in the sanctity of human life," she said.

She touted her background as a tax lawyer in vowing to cut taxes and reduce spending in order to address the United States's massive deficit, a central demand of the libertarian Tea Party.

She also appeared to call for a more assertive foreign policy as she faulted Obama for allowing France and Britain to take the lead in the Western-led military intervention in Libya.

"We are the head. We are not the tail. The president was wrong," she said.

"The president deferred leadership in Libya to France. That's all we need to know. The president was not leading when it came to Libya."

She also navigated lighter moments, as when she was asked to choose between singers Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash -- she responded that she liked both, and that she had "Christmas with Elvis" on her iPod.

She faces an uphill battle -- particularly if Palin enters the race -- and remains well behind front-runner Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor who has presented himself as an able businessman who can fix the economy.

A National Journal poll said 51 percent of viewers though Romney won the debate. Bachmann came in second with 21 percent, followed by the other candidates.

The Bachmann campaign, of course, begged to differ, releasing a statement after the debate entitled "Bachmann Wins First GOP Presidential Debate," and saying she had brought the "voice of the people" to the gathering.

Tom Coburn returns to fighting form  

Something odd happened in the Senate in the past few months: Democrats grew enamored with archconservative Sen. Tom Coburn because he was willing to consider increasing tax revenues as part of a deficit-reduction deal.

But Coburn the dealmaker appears gone for now, and he's back to agitating Democrats and even some fellow Republicans.

Coburn infuriated Democratic leaders Tuesday by commandeering the Senate floor to force a key vote aimed at repealing ethanol subsidies, sparred with an angry Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) last week in a testy floor debate and will soon pitch his own deficit-slashing package - $9 trillion in budget cuts with a major overhaul of entitlement programs and tax reforms.

Indeed, Coburn - who never seemed comfortable in the role of Washington insider - is back to acting as a confrontational senator not afraid to put his colleagues in a pickle.

Last month, he dropped out of the so-called Gang of Six, a bipartisan group of senators trying to negotiate a budget deal, after a loud dispute with Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) over how deeply to slash Medicare and discretionary spending. On Tuesday, when the Senate blocked his ethanol amendment, Coburn effectively put the Gang of Six on the spot, forcing the senators who hail from corn states - Durbin and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) - to choose between their home-state interests and calls to slash the deficit.

Coburn also angered some fellow Republicans who were upset about voting without having a chance to push alternatives.

For weeks, it appeared Coburn's ethanol plan stood a strong chance of passing the Senate. But his hard-nosed tactics to force a vote Tuesday rallied nearly the entire Democratic Caucus - and 13 Republicans - to block it on a 40-59 vote.

In an interview, Coburn said he had little choice but to force a vote and he took on Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

"His goal is to do nothing, so they have to take as few as votes as possible," Coburn told POLITICO. "Rome is burning, and the Senate is picking its nose."

Reid's office - furious at Coburn's recent procedural tactics - was in no mood to hear his attacks.

"With millions of Americans still looking for work, Sen. Coburn should focus his energy on explaining to the American people why he is hijacking a jobs bill with irrelevant, pet project amendments," said Adam Jentleson, Reid spokesman. "This common-sense jobs bill has always passed with broad bipartisan support. Stunts like this risk derailing a jobs bill [at] a time when we most need to be focused on jobs."

Democrats believe Coburn pulled a bait and switch on them by forcing the procedural vote on his ethanol plan. Last Thursday, he indicated he had an amendment aimed at cutting environmental programs.

Instead, he quietly substituted that plan with his long-standing amendment to slash the 45-cents-per-gallon tax credit for ethanol and the 54-cents-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol.

Before Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) even knew what was going on, Coburn filed a motion to force the vote Tuesday on slashing ethanol subsidies. While any senator can file a cloture motion, the majority leader is typically granted the exclusive right to schedule such votes.

"I think that came as a surprise to the leadership probably, and it doesn't happen very often," said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, No. 4 in GOP leadership. "It's certainly something that doesn't happen very often around here, and I don't think it's successfully happened more than 2 to 3 times in the last 30 years. If it does this time, it will be new precedent."

Durbin said Coburn's move only made his job easier to kill the amendment. 

"There has been an understanding: The majority leader, in working with the minority leader in the Senate, [has] decided when these cloture motions will be filed and considered, and this departs from that," Durbin said. "I think it's a mistake, and we're going to try to defeat that cloture motion." 

Before the vote, McConnell wouldn't say whether he had any concerns with Coburn's tactics, but he voted with his GOP colleague on the floor. 

Coburn said both Democrats and Republicans have prevented him for months from offering the amendment and that he had little choice but to use his procedural rights to force a vote on a measure that could save more than $5 billion this year. Farm-state lawmakers believe his plans would eliminate jobs and drive up already high gas prices. 

"Either the people in Washington get it and are going to stop wasting money on programs that they don't need to waste on, and they're going to start acting in the best long-term interests of the country," Coburn said on the floor Tuesday. "They're either going to do that or they're not." 

While Coburn is back to his rabble-rousing ways, Democrats believe he also wants to divert attention from his role in the sex scandal that ended the career of former Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.). Coburn received unflattering attention in May when the Senate Select Committee on Ethics reported that the Oklahoma Republican acted as an intermediary between Ensign and the attorney of the husband of Ensign's mistress, attempting to negotiate a payoff to settle the affair. 

Coburn has rejected the way he was portrayed in the report, but it added a distraction to a career that has been largely focused on drawing outside pressure on lawmakers from both parties to cut spending. 

First elected to the House in the Republican landslide of 1994, Coburn was a frequent critic of Newt Gingrich, and he was part of a coup that later drove the then-speaker from his perch atop the House. 

In the Senate, 63-year-old Coburn - a practicing obstetrician - carries a list of bills he's blocking in his jacket pocket, earning him the nickname "Dr. No." But he's cast votes that have earned him criticism on the right, including in 2008 for the Wall Street bailout and last December as part of the president's deficit commission, which slashed about $4 trillion by reforming the tax code to, in part, eliminate certain deductions and overhaul entitlement programs. 

It was the deficit commission's report that led him to the Gang of Six, until he dropped out after five months of negotiations when Democrats thought he was moving the goal posts and when he thought they were too timid in pushing for cuts. 

Now, he's enlisted about 20 staff members to put together an aggressive plan to cut $9 trillion over the next decade, including major changes to Medicare, cuts to defense spending and even increases in tax revenues by eliminating certain tax deductions - a move certain to spark another fight with anti-tax activists like Grover Norquist. 

His spats have crossed the aisle - including with Landrieu last week after he railed against federal regulations and bureaucracy. 

"I'd like to ask him what bureaucracy did he think supported the elimination of Osama bin Laden?" an annoyed Landrieu said. "Does the senator from Oklahoma believe there were no risks taken by this bureaucracy that he so routinely wants to degrade to no good end?" 

But not all of his critics are ready to direct their fire at him. 

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), one of ethanol's fiercest defenders, seemed to praise Coburn for finding a way to force a vote on the issue Tuesday. 

"He's got to be complimented for being ingenious," he said slyly.