Down but not out, Bachmann aims for N.H. reboot

MOULTONBOROUGH, N.H. -- The last time Michele Bachmann was in New Hampshire, she was riding high.

On the heels of her stellar first debate performance at St. Anselm College in Manchester, by the end of June the Minnesota congresswoman was suddenly nipping at the heels of front-runner Mitt Romney in the polls here.

More than three months later, Bachmann's star has dimmed considerably. Amid a series of public stumbles, departures of top advisers, and the rise of other Tea Party-aligned GOP presidential rivals, Bachmann stands at just 2 percent in the Granite State, according to a WMUR/UNH poll released on Friday.

When Bachmann returned to New Hampshire on Sunday for the first time since June 28, gone were the flashy staples of her summer campaign, including the high-decibel Elvis music that would announce her arrival at events both large and small and the aggressive entourage of handlers and security personnel that ruffled more than a few reporters' feathers.

At each of the three northern New Hampshire events that she held on this first day of her planned four-day bus tour through the first-in-the-nation primary state, Bachmann appeared more at ease and eager to make herself accessible to voters than when she first burst onto the presidential stage.

The question is whether it's already too late, especially in a state like this, where the pragmatic and socially moderate GOP electorate may not be an ideal match for Bachmann.

Despite the make-or-break scenario that Bachmann faces in Iowa and the dwindling resources she has available to meet the steep challenge there, senior New Hampshire adviser Jeff Chidhester said that New Hampshire would remain an important piece of the overall strategy.

"She's going to come back more," he said. "She loves New Hampshire, and so we'll see a lot more activity here."

On an unseasonably warm day that saw leaf-peeping tourists snarling the rural highways that snake through picturesque North Country, Bachmann arrived 40 minutes late to her first event in North Conway.

But rather than failing to acknowledge her tardiness, as the candidate of three months ago was prone to do, she apologized profusely to the enthusiastic crowd of about 50 and noted that at least the influx of sightseers that held her up signaled a boost to the local economy.

At town-hall events in both North Conway and Moultonborough, Bachmann delivered brief opening remarks before spending the bulk of her time taking questions from the audience -- a nod to the direct give-and-take with candidates that voters here have long demanded.

As always, her rhetoric was heavy on small government and fealty to the Constitution. But Bachmann was particularly emphatic about the stakes that she says the country faces.

"It won't be 235 years that we survive, if we keep doing these ridiculous things that we're doing now," she said in North Conway.

Bachmann was greeted by mostly receptive well-wishers as she weaved through Zeb's General Store amid a crush of tourists enjoying the brilliant weather and stark reds and yellows that dotted the October tree line.

"If she wins, she'll be the first woman president," one wide-eyed girl informed her mother after shaking the candidate's hand.

But also evident was Bachmann's extended hiatus from the state, which she blamed rather dubiously on her commitment to lead the charge against raising the national debt ceiling -- a vote that took place more than two months ago.

"Hi, I'm Todd," one man who greeted Bachman in North Conway said.

He paused for a moment before asking, "What's your name?"

Still, Bachmann's noticeably improved comfort level with the tumult of retail politicking on the presidential level was evident on Sunday, and her campaign says that she will continue to lean heavily on face-to-face interaction with voters going forward.

"Michele is the best retail politician in this race," said Bachmann spokesperson Alice Stewart. "She enjoys listening to what people have to say and appreciates the opportunity to share her conservative values and her ideas on turning the economy around."

As she has done since she entered the race, Bachmann made the case that President Obama's eventual defeat is all but a foregone conclusion, letting GOP voters infer that concerns about how she might fare in a general election are moot.

"I go all over the country, and I want you to know: People have made their mind up," Bachmann said in Moultonborough. "The cake is baked. Barack Obama will be a one-term president."

But Ray Shakir, the vice chairman of the Mount Washington Valley Republican Committee, seemed disinclined to take her word for it.

"There's nothing that she said that I disagree with," said Shakir, who is leaning toward supporting either Herman Cain or Newt Gingrich. "It's just a matter of if she's electable."

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