Michele Bachmann Suspends Presidential Campaign
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Scott Olson/Getty Images(DES MOINES, Iowa) — Rep. Michele Bachmann suspended her presidential campaign Wednesday, hours after placing sixth in Tuesday’s Iowa Republican caucuses.
“Last night, the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice, so I have decided to stand aside,” Bachmann said at a news conference, flanked by her parents, husband and five children. “I have no regrets, none whatsoever. We never compromised our principles and we can leave this race knowing we ran it with the utmost integrity.”
Bachmann said she will continue to fight the policies of President Obama, particularly his health care legislation, calling the 2012 election “the last chance to turn our country around, before we go down the road of socialism.”
She said she was motivated to stop Obama and not by a thirst for power. “Though I’m a congresswoman by title, a politician I’ve never been. … I’m not motivated by vanity, glory or the quest for power.”
Bachmann had staked her candidacy on Iowa, the state in which she was born and raised. In September, campaign manager Keith Nahigian called Iowa a “must win” state.
Bachmann placed last out of the six candidates competing in Tuesday’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, receiving only 5 percent of the vote and losing in Waterloo, the town where she was born.
Bachmann, a three-term congresswoman from Minnesota, emerged on the national political scene riding the wave of Tea Party activism. As the founder of the Tea Party Caucus in Congress, Bachmann’s socially conservative, family-oriented approach initially captured the support of staunch conservatives and evangelical Christians.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio