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Bachmann for President

"The Path to Victory" +
  4:31 web video from Sept. 27, 2011.

Keith Nahigian: Hello, my name is Keith Nahigian.  I'm the campaign manager for Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign in 2012.

President Obama is in a very bad position a little over a year out.  He promised a lot in terms of the stimulus program and the bailouts, that we would be on the right path by now, and every single thing that he has done has put us completely in the wrong direction.  And now, finally raising taxes on Americans that create jobs.  Most Americans believe that he has not lived up to expectations.  Eighty-one percent of Americans think that the President's economic program is either making the economy worse or having no effect at all.  They've seen their dollar shrink in value by 14 percent in the last 12 months, they've seen their houses, 22% of the public, houses are under water in terms of their mortgages.  His base and his people who elected him are running. 

But remember, you do not fire the president of the United States to slightly move to another direction. In order to get rid of a sitting president, you need to be on a totally different path, and that's the appeal of Michele Bachmann.

Michele Bachmann knows how to fix the economy.  She knows the regulation with her tax degree of knowing how taxes are really a stranglehold on our economy.  She introduced the legislation that will repeal Dodd-Frank which is holding up all money that is to be infused into the economy.  She also is a champion, by knowing the tax system, of repatriationxxof getting U.S. companies that have made profits abroad to let that money back in, but the tax system doesn't allow nearly $2 trillion worth of money to come into the country.

And she's also been a champion on stopping spending, where everybody else is rolling over and allowing spending and giving the goverment more and more money and more and more debt, she's been stopping that.  And the number one thing that she thinks is hurting the economy and stopping job growth has been this big cloud out there hanging over small business of ObamaCare.

ObamaCare is scaring businesses to death.  They don't know how much it's going to be, they don't know what the impact's going to be and as a result they have frozen hiring.  She is in the perfect position to uncouple this the day she gets into office and put us on the right path.


We made a decision to go after Iowa.  Iowa's the first caucus in the nation.  It's her home state; she was born in Waterloo, she knows Iowa and our goal was to get to Iowa and win the Straw Poll.  She actually not only won the Straw Poll, she won the Straw Poll in the shortest amount of time of any winner.  Why is the Straw Poll important?  This is the beginning of the track to the presidency.  She has to win Iowa and move on from there.  Normally [when] that happens, it triggers a lot of infusion of money, support and a momentum wave of media that will take you all the way through.  So by winning Iowa she will be on a path to victory.

The Straw Poll was very important to identify key voters, and also it gave her time to get her campaign moving.  The most important thing is our structure and our numbers in Iowa and our voter ID process in Iowa. 

The next state that comes up is New Hampshire.  Some of these are going to move around a little bit, but right now the next primary is in New Hampshire.  We are going to compete in New Hampshire, but not dominate our effort like we are in Iowa.

After that it rolls to South Carolina where we have a very strong presence.  She is looking to connect with Republicans, the constitutional Republicans, the social conservatives, as well as a big defense area so kind of the national security conservatives.  She is the only candidate that unites all of them, which puts her in a position of being able to have a clear victory in South Carolina.

So if she wins in Iowa, does well in New Hampshire, wins South Carolina, she basically [is] on a very good path to win the nomination.  And this is a state by state marathon that we need to be able to run our own race at our own pace, and you're going to see people come in front of us and behind us, and we've already seen people who've been running for two years and they're eliminated from the race.  But we are on the exact path that we have designed and the exact path to victory.


If we don't turn it around and Obama gets to stay another four years our country is toast.  The arrogance of the last three or four years is astounding, and I think they are scared to death that she will win the nomination, 'cause they know she's the one that's going to defeat them.


Constitutional conservatives and others in the past have been asked to settle in order to win.  This is not the year to compromise; this is the year to finally elect somebody that's on the right side of all the issues, and have a unique position to put us on a completely different path to restore America.

Notes: From the press release...

Team Bachmann campaign manager Keith Nahigian outlined the campaign’s winning strategy today in a briefing called “Path to Victory.” Nahigian pinpoints Bachmann’s leadership and unwavering conservative principles as the reasons she is the only candidate in the GOP field that can defeat President Obama in 2012, and lays out Team Bachmann’s plan to target the key caucus states of Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Florida.

“We are on the exact path we have designed and the exact path to victory,” says Nahigian. “Constitutional conservatives and others in the past have been asked to settle in order to win. This is not the year to compromise. This is the year to finally elect somebody who is on the right side of all the issues and has a unique position to put us on a completely different path to restore America. Michele Bachmann is that conservative.”