Eric Woolson has previously worked for the campaigns of Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty; former Iowa gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats; and U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-New Hartford).

“We have a strong, experienced organization in place that is equipped to build upon Michele Bachmann’s historic victory in the Republican Party of Iowa Straw Poll this summer,” said national campaign manager Keith Nahigian. “Eric is the perfect person to lead our team to victory on caucus day.”

Other top members of Bachmann’s Iowa operation include Wes Enos, the deputy state campaign manager; State Sen. Kent Sorenson (R-Indianola), the state chairman; and State Sen. Brad Zaun (R-Urbandale), the state state co-chairman.

Rep. Michele Bachmann is the third presidential candidate to be “glitter bombed” by activists, suggesting that such actions are congealing into a full-fledged campaign to toss glitter at anti-LGBT politicians. Like Tim Pawlenty and Newt Gingrich before her, Bachmann was subjected to showers of glitter Saturday because of her statements about LGBT people and for her support of controversial anti-gay preacher Bradlee Dean.

“‘Glittering’ is a fun, safe way to draw attention to some very serious issues,” said Rachel E.B. Lang, a Minneapolis attorney who tossed a handful of glitter on Bachmann at the RightOnline conference on Saturday. “Young people deserve the right to feel safe and respected, and have their families reflected at school. And I deserve the right to see my lesbian mom get married one day! I’m not willing to be silent about the vicious attacks on families like ours.”

Lang said it was Bachmann’s connection to Bradlee Dean that prompted the glittering. “My mom is a Lutheran minister and has taught me the values of love and compassion that I so desperately wish Michele Bachmann and Bradlee Dean would cherish too,” she said in an email Saturday.

Footage of Bachmann being glittered:

GetEQUAL, an advocacy group that supports direct action to achieve LGBT equality, took credit for the action and has set up a “gliteratti” movement, urging more events like Saturdays to draw attention to anti-LGBT politicians.

“Glitter bombing” got its start last month when Nick Espinosa threw glitter on Newt Gingrich at an event hosted by the Minnesota Family Council, a group that opposes LGBT rights and that has compared being gay to engaging in pedophilia and bestiality. Last week, Tim Pawlenty was showered with pink glitter at a San Francisco book signing because of his stances against LGBT rights and abortion rights.

Espinosa and Lang spoke about their glitter-bombing at Netroots Nation on Saturday.

Mike Huckabee, a former presidential candidate who opposes LGBT rights, called for glitter throwers to be arrested in an interview over the weekend.

“The people ought to be arrested who did that. That’s an assault,” Huckabee said. “It’s one thing to yell at a candidate, but you never put your hands on him, you don’t touch him. You’ve got to draw the line.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann is ramping up her likely presidential campaign with a series of upcoming travel dates and the addition of a national press secretary. The news was announced as she heads to New Hampshire to participate in the first GOP presidential debate Monday evening and as she scheduled a tea party bus tour of Iowa. She also got a huge platform for her economic views in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, something critics have already vetted.

Bachmann has tapped Alice Stewart as her national press secretary, Fox News reported Sunday. Stewart was Mike Huckabee’s press secretary during his 2008 presidential campaign. Bachmann has already signed on former Huckabee campaign manager Ed Rollins and Huckabee’s old Iowa field organizer Wes Enos.

Fox notes that Stewart will begin her new job today, handling press for Bachmann during the New Hampshire debate.

Bachmann will also be heading to Iowa in two weeks as a part of the Iowa Tea Party Bus Tour, a collaborative event that will bring together the tea party along with anti-gay and anti–abortion rights groups such as the American Principles Project. Bachmann is scheduled to join the tour on June 25 with stops in Indianola and Lamoni. The tour is also aimed at urging GOP candidates to reinstate the gold standard for currency.

The Wall Street Journal conducted an interview and profile of Bachmann on Sunday in which she said, “If I’m in I’ll be all in.” The piece delved into Bachmann’s economic proposals.

Bachmann wants to drastically lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 9 percent and recoup the loss of federal revenue by making poorer Americans pay more in income taxes.

As ThinkProgress notes, the result would be more taxes paid by the poor.

The reason so much of the income tax liability has become concentrated at the top of the income scale is because over the last few decades income inequality has skyrocketed. The richest one percent of the country currently earn nearly one quarter of the income, and therefore pay the lion’s share of the income tax. Bachmann would raise taxes on those who have seen their incomes stagnate or even drop over the last ten years, even as she cuts taxes on the ultra-wealthy.

Rep. Michele Bachmann has selected high-profile political strategist Ed Rollins to run her presidential campaign, two sources close to Bachmann told CBS.

In 2007, Rollins was the national campaign chairman and senior adviser for Mike Huckabee’s presidential run. But according to Fox News, Rollins is most most famous for directing Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign where he helped the former president carry 49 states.

“I’ve been in a lot of campaigns, but I’ve also always gone in the government,” Rollins said in a Jan. 2008 interview with Portfolio.com. ”I understand public policy. I understand the consequences of public policy, the good parts and bad parts.”

Bachmann is expected to announce her candidacy later this month in Iowa.

According to CBS, Rollins joins a staff that includes Brett O’Donnell, who advised George W. Bush and John McCain and is considered the best debate coach in politics. The team also includes Bob Heckman, who is prominent in the conservative movement.

Last weekend Colorado Republicans huddled at their annual Centennial Dinner and took a presidential election straw poll. To their credit, perhaps, attendees at the party seemed as uninspired by the GOP candidate choices so far as does the rest of the nation. They liked Mitt Romney best, a safe choice. Runner up was not a safe choice.

After Romney came Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, the tea party U.S. history fan who announced she was contemplating a run at the White House the same day she put the battles of Lexington and Concord in New Hampshire instead of Massachusetts. Just as surprising is that Colorado Republicans also liked Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty. The former governor came in third in the poll. He was the first candidate to formally announce for president, but few Americans outside of Minnesota and the Centennial Dinner crowd could pick him out of a line up.

It’s probably worth noting that Bachmann likely visited with many of these people when she memorably came to town in August 2009. She talked to conservatives at an Independence Institute fundraiser and made national headlines when the Colorado Independent reported she asked the people there and conservatives across the country to “slit their wrists and become blood brothers” in opposing all things Democrat and Obama.

As Ernest Luning reported at the time:

In a fiery speech that had her conservative Colorado audience cheering, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann railed against the dangers of health care reform and other Democratic initiatives, warning the proposals “have the strength to destroy this country forever.”

“This cannot pass,” the Minnesota Republican told a crowd at a Denver gathering… “What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass.”

“Something is way crazy out there… This is slavery,” Bachmann said after claiming many Americans pay half their income to taxes. “It’s nothing more than slavery.”

Bachmann may not have won the healthcare battle but she seems to have won some blood brothers and sisters in Colorado.

Here’s Luning at The Statesman listing the straw poll results last weekend:

“We thought it would be fun tonight with this crowd of prominent Republican leaders from all parts of our state to have a poll,” Wadhams said before sending ballot-collectors into the crowd.

The poll was open-ended — a slip of paper with a blank where Republicans could write in any candidate’s name — and left a few voters at a loss. “Who’s even running?” asked one Republican as ballot-collectors neared.

Unsurprisingly, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — who won the 2008 Colorado caucuses with 59 percent of the vote over John McCain’s 19 percent in a nonbinding preference poll — led with 76 votes, twice the tally of his nearest competitor, though he only garnered roughly one-fourth of the total votes. Next in line was Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a conservative lightning rod who has been making noise about a possible presidential bid in recent weeks, with 38 votes. Another half-dozen candidates bunched up with similar votes.

It’s a safe bet not everyone voting in the straw poll took their votes entirely seriously, as several Colorado Republicans — including U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, Denver Republican Party Secretary Brett Moore and four of the five state party chair candidates — received at least one vote.

The top 10 vote-getters, after Romney and Bachmann, were former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty — the only announced candidate so far — with 34 votes, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels with 27, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie with 26, tied with businessman and TV personality Donald Trump, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin with 20, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 19, businessman Herman Cain with 14 and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee with 12.

Also receiving votes were former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Fox News host Glenn Beck and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, among others.

In the lead-up to Iowa’s first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, our sister site in Iowa enlists local journalists, academics, political consultants and pundits to help take the pulse, albeit unscientifically, about how various candidates are perceived in the Hawkeye State. In its first edition of the 2012 cycle, the Iowa Independent’s Power Rankings puts Mike Huckabee in first place if the caucus was held today, but Minnesotans Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann also place in the top five.

Huckabee — who won the 2008 Iowa Caucuses — tops the list due to his still-high name recognition and the former Arkansas governor’s proximity to Iowans, as well as the fact that he never dismantled his statewide campaign organization.

Pawlenty ranks second, with proximity in his favor, and due to that factor, good name recognition. Where he lags, according to Power Rankings contributors: “Charisma and an ability to connect with people in small settings.”

“Pawlenty will likely be a lot of people’s second choice, which is both good and bad. There certainly isn’t room for both he and fellow Minnesotan Bachmann, who has a lot more charisma and a lot higher name ID, at the top of Iowa power rankings,” noted one participant.

In general, several of our panelists noted that Pawlenty comes across as “too slick and polished” to earn widespread support in the Iowa caucus. But, each is also quick to point out that it is still early and that Pawlenty has attracted key and influential Iowans to his team. In short, we suspect that Pawlenty will remain a mainstay in the Power Rankings.

Trailing Newt Gingrich, in third, and Mitt Romney, in fourth, is Bachmann:

Proximity, name recognition and the support of a certain Iowa congressman were the three determining factors that narrowly placed Minnesota’s Congresswoman Bachmann into our first top five.“ Bachmann is an Iowa native [and] congresswoman from neighboring Minnesota who is a major ally of U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa). His endorsement alone is worth its weight in bronze.”

Bachmann, who is expected to garner a large share of support from tea party activists and social conservatives, has a fate that is inextricably hitched to that of Huckabee. If he officially plunges into the 2012 race, her stock sinks. If he openly announces that he will not seek the party’s nomination, Bachmann is poised to build a coalition from her two key demographics that is likely unattainable for other candidates leading our first rankings.

The next edition of the biweekly 2012 Power Rankings is scheduled for Mar. 27.

The Washington Post reports Wednesday morning that veteran Iowa political strategist Eric Woolson has signed on to be part of former Gov. Tim Pawlenty‘s presidential campaign.

Woolson led Mike Huckabee‘s campaign in the 2008 Iowa caucuses, pulling off a surprise victory and derailing the presidential hopes of then-frontrunner Mitt Romney. Last year, Woolson managed the gubernatorial campaign of Bob Vander Plaats, who lost to Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad in the GOP primary. He went on to work for U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley’s successful re-election campaign and the unsuccessful congressional campaign of Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa’s 2nd District.

Woolson was a member of the Iowa press corps for 20 years.  He started his newspaper career in Boone in 1976 and worked for newspapers in Madrid, Guthrie Center, Webster City and Keokuk before joining United Press International in 1983. He wrote for the Waterloo Courier for 11 years, including nine as its political reporter/columnist and two years as its editorial page editor.

He was Gov. Branstad’s communications director and press secretary during Branstad’s final term in office. He served as Iowa communications director to George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign and was the communications director for the Doug Gross for Governor campaign in 2002.

In 2002, he founded The Concept Works, a firm that provides public and government relations counsel, marketing services and crisis management for corporate, political and individual clients.

Pawlenty has yet to formally declare his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, but most observers consider him a lock to join the campaign. Politico reports that Woolson met privately with Huckabee last week during his book tour’s stops in Iowa. Some are taking Woolson’s new role with Pawlenty as a sign Huckabee is unlikely to make a second run for president, although as Chris Cillizza of the Post points out, most dismiss this line of thinking by saying Woolson is not a part of Huckabee’s inner circle.

Woolson could not be immediately reached Wednesday morning for comment.

Rep. Michele Bachmann will be headlining a California-based religious right webcast on Mar. 26 along with Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich and Haley Barbour. The “Rediscover God in America” will be shown to churches around the country; so far only two Minnesota churches have signed up to show it. “It’s time to learn and understand what ‘One Nation Under God’ really means,” the program’s website states.

“History is clear: the founders of our country drew their inspiration, wisdom, and direction from the Bible,” the webcast promoters write. “Beginning in colonial times, church leaders spoke to their congregations about the events and issues of the day in the context of Biblical truth. Rediscover God in America will lay a foundation of critical knowledge for your congregation. They’ll learn how to interpret and assess current events in light of God’s Word, as our founding fathers did, and how to respond Biblically and take action that aligns with His truth.”

Rediscover America is part of United in Purpose, a conservative Christian organization that works to mobilize Christian voters.

In Minnesota, only two churches have signed up to show the webcast: United Methodist Church in New London and Jesus Assembly of God in St. Peter.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty finished a distant fifth place among potential presidential hopefuls in a poll of Republican voters released on Monday. According to the Quinnipiac University poll, Pawlenty trailed Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich, who all broke the 15 percent mark. Pawlenty garnered 6 percent in the poll and beat out Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour, and John Thune.

Palin led the pack with 19 percent and Romney and Huckabee were close behind with 18 percent and 17 percent respectively. Gingrich placed fourth with 15 percent.

Pawlenty at 6 percent, with Daniels, Barbour and Thune each garnering 2 percent.

The poll also looked at match-ups with President Barack Obama and found Romney in a statistical tie while Palin and Huckabee would lose to the incumbent.

Pawlenty had a 13 percent favorable rating and a 10 percent unfavorable rating. Seventy-six percent didn’t know enough about him to form an opinion.

With just over 14 months remaining before the Iowa Caucus, National Journal’s The Hotline has released its Presidential Power Rankings Tuesday morning, assessing the viability of 15 Republicans who might mount bids to become their party’s representative in the race against President Barack Obama.

The list ranks Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty as the second leading contender, far above his placement in most early 2012 opinion polls. Hotline cites his “executive experience and conservative credentials,” as reasons to believe Pawlenty is the real deal, but wonders if the stereotype of Minnesota nice might be true in this case, harming his ability to appear aggressive enough to run an effective presidential primary campaign.

The Hotline breaks the potential candidates down into four tiers that, rather than revealing the strength of each candidate, indicate what sections of the Republican base Hotline believes will play the most prominent role in the selecting the nominee.

The publication essentially dismisses the 2010 uprising of the tea party movement as a force in Republican primaries, with “The Tea Party Tier” at the bottom of the list. Hotline gives most weight to the traditional-style candidates, known as “The A-List Tier.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney sits atop this pack, followed by Pawlenty, U.S. Sen. John Thune (N.D.) and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. In explaining its high rating of Romney, Hotline points to his strengths in context of previous primary elections:

The GOP has a history of nominating the person who has stood in line, and after finishing second behind John McCain in 2008, Romney is now that person. He’s got the necessary infrastructure, fundraising ability, and intangibles to be the undisputed front-runner, but how convincingly he answers nagging questions about his individual mandate in Commonwealth Care will determine how long he keeps the top spot.

That last point is not just a distraction Romney can brush off on the campaign trail. His passage of health-care reform during his tenure in Massachusetts has already become a lightning rod for his potential opponents. The legislation is remarkably similar to the Affordable Care Act passed by Congress in 2010, with the individual mandate especially toxic among today’s Republican base voters.

On Fox News last night, Texas Gov. Rick Perry — himself ranked 11th on Hotline’s list — said that Romney would need to repudiate the Massachusetts plan if he is going to enter the 2012 field. And President Obama — likely viewing Romney as one of his greatest threats toward reelection for a second term — has frequently targeted Romney in public remarks on the health-care reform bill as a way of defusing his vulnerability in a Republican primary.

Similar problems face the remaining A-Tier candidates in Hotline’s list. Thune voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program in 2008,  a decision Hotline says Thune has “an explanation for which he’s already rehearsing.” But TARP is up there alongside health care in the conservative base’s litmus test for vetting candidates. Support for the banking bill toppled Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah during his primary and has drawn conservatives’ ire for numerous other Republicans. And few politicians carry the establishment label quite like Barbour, a former lobbyist and chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Though they’re termed the “The Fox News Tier,” the second class of candidates in Hotline’s rankings really represent the standard bearers of the tea party movement. Ranking from fourth to eighth are former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Indiana Rep. Mike Pence.

While Hotline ranks its first four candidates primarily on their similarities to past primary winners, everyone in the second tier is described in the terms that truly matter in running primary campaigns: the way voters receive them. Huckabee is a “charismatic man in the field.” Gingrich is “greeted like a rock star at every GOP rally he attends.” They note but do not give much weight to Pence’s victory in the Value Voters Summit straw poll, a key indication that the Indiana representative draws significant support from an important element of the Republican base.

As the name for this tier implies, all four are major figures appear regularly on Fox News, which has become one of the prime avenues for Republicans to reach the base. And though many tea party favorites such as Christine O’Donnell and Ken Buck ended up losing their general election campaigns, one of the main lessons of the 2010 cycle was the outsized power held by conservative activists in Republican primaries, a role likely to continue during the presidential nomination selection process. Increased enthusiasm for a candidate in the grassroots leads to excessive media coverage (see the endless discussion for any of Sarah Palin’s endorsements) and significant infusions of campaign funds (tea party favorite Sharron Angle’s $21 million haul).

As Slate’s Dave Weigel noted today, Romney may perform well in the early primary polls, but he largely serves as a placeholder, or traditional candidate, with significantly lower enthusiasm and loyalty than the candidates popular among the party’s base. The level of support for him or Pawlenty will likely vary significantly between now and February 2012, but the die-hard supporters of Sarah Palin are unlikely to waver in their allegiance.

With over a year to go until the first actual election in the nomination process, there is still plenty of time for political dynamics to shift. At this point 14 months ago, the tea party was still a nascent concept with little organizational power. But the current direction of political dynamics after the 2010 elections indicate that these voters will play a prominent role in selecting the Republicans’ 2012 candidate.

Read Hotline’s post for their rankings of candidates 9-15 and a description of each candidates strengths and weaknesses.