Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Monday that he dropped his presidential bid too early and that his campaign put too much focus on Iowa.

Pawlenty announced the end of his campaign in August. MPR’s reporting confirms earlier speculation that his campaign was out of money and in debt.

“We made some decisions that I think with the benefit of hindsight I would have done differently. I think if we had it to do over again, we would have probably metered out our resources lighter earlier so we could have made them last longer,” Pawlenty said. “Instead, we went for a more dramatic piece of progress in that early Iowa contest, and I think we should have made a different decision.”

Pawlenty invested much of his energy an attempt to win the Iowa Straw Poll, but nevertheless placed third.

He also told the Star Tribune that he regretted blowing all his money on the race in Iowa, which is generally considered to be more friendly to conservative candidates. In an on-air interview at MPR Tuesday, Pawlenty said consultants urged him to throw “red meat” issues to voters, but that his personality is more Midwestern.

Pawlenty has endorsed Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination and is scheduled to host a Twin Cities fundraiser for the former Massachusetts governor next month.

Rep. Michele Bachmann’s announcement last week that she’s mulling the idea of becoming a potential contender for the GOP nomination for president in 2012 has brought about a new round of fact-checking her statements this week. PolitiFact gave her a “Pants on Fire” rating on Tuesday, while Poligraph gave her an “inconclusive” on Wednesday. A member of Congress even used committee testimony this week to try and debunk one of her more frequent claims.

On the campaign trail in Iowa last weekend, Bachmann offered an assertion that PolitiFact, a project of the St. Petersburg Times, found completely false. Bachmann said, “Let’s look at the number one. Number one. That’s the number of new drilling permits under the Obama administration since they came into office.”

She continued, “Gee, maybe that has something to do with this next figure. Let’s take a look, $1.83. That is the price that gasoline was the day before Barack Obama took office as president of the United States. Is it time for a change?”

Obama put a moratorium on offshore drilling following the an explosion at a BP oil rig that killed 11 people and caused one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in U.S. history.

PolitiFact found that the Obama administration has approved numerous permits for offshore drilling, both deepwater (six permits) and shallow (39 permits). PolitiFact gave Bachmann its lowest rating, Pants on Fire.

As an aside, Sen. Al Franken signed on to the Use It or Lose It Act of 2011 directing oil companies to develop oil production on federal lands they currently lease or lose their leases in an attempt to ramp up oil production.

On Wednesday, Minnesota Public Radio’s Poligraph evaluated another of Bachmann’s statements during her Iowa campaigning: “From the day it passed one year ago until today, there hasn’t been one week that a majority of Americans haven’t said ‘kill that bill.’”

Poligraph notes, “Bachmann’s correct that there’s solid support for repealing some or all the health care bill. What’s unclear is whether the majority of Americans do, or if they have every week for the last year. One poll supports this claim, others don’t. As a result, Bachmann’s claim is Inconclusive.”

Bachmann’s office said the numbers she was referencing came from Gallup, but Poligraph notes that other pollsters have found that the number of Americans who support a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act varies widely.

Also on Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey grilled Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf about Bachmann’s infamous claim that $105 billion was “hidden” in the health care reform bill. ThinkProgress caught the exchange:

REP. FRANK PALLONE (D-NJ): We considered a bill that would repeal funding for section 1311, the health insurance exchange planning and establishment grants. Did you know about that funding stream?

ELMENDORF: Yes, Congressman.

PALLONE: Okay, so it wasn’t hidden. What about section 4002, the prevention and public health fund. Did you know about that?

ELMENDORF: Yes, Congressman.

PALLONE: So that wasn’t hidden either. And what about funding for school based health centers? Did you know about that?

ELMENDORF: Yes, Congressman.

Rep. Michele Bachmann took Iowa by storm last week, making a series of media appearances and fundraising events and hitting on a common theme: “I am an Iowan.” She talked about taking Iowa’s money back home from the feds, about bringing jobs to Iowa and protecting Iowa’s quality public schools from the Department of Education. The district she represents north of the Twin Cities or the state in which it is contained went largely unmentioned over the course of the week.

KTIA radio on Thursday, she said, “I just want to mention for your listeners sake that I’m actually an Iowan by birth. I was born in Waterloo, Iowa, and I lived here for the first 12 years of my life. I’m actually a 7th generation Iowan.”

In an interview with Fox’s Greta Van Susteran on Thursday, she shared her Iowa roots.

“When I grew up here in Iowa — I am an Iowan, as a matter of fact, I’m a 7th generation Iowan — when I grew up in Iowa our family was Democrat. We were reasonable people we had Democrats in our family, Republicans in our family.”

On WHO radio with Jan Mickelson, she said she wanted to make sure Iowa didn’t implement “Obamacare.”

“Congressman [Steve] King and I aren’t giving up [on defunding the Affordable Care Act]. We are tough Iowegians. We need to make sure here in Iowa that the Iowa Legislature doesn’t put into place these new exchanges.”

In a YouTube interview with blogger Shane Vander Hart on Thursday, Bachmann touted the great public education system in Iowa and vowed to protect it from the federal government.

“I am an Iowan. I was born here. I’m a 7 generation Iowan. I was born in Waterloo, but we need to make that decision [to run for president] I think sometime this summer,” she said.

“I attended great public schools in Iowa when I first started my education. I was here for kindergarten through 6th grade,” she said. “They were great public schools because they were locally controlled. I would prefer to see the federal education department abolished and instead see parents and states keep the money.”

At Rep. King’s Conservative Principles Conference on Saturday, Bachmann said that she hopes to start job growth in Iowa.

“I was born here in Iowa almost 55 years ago to the week, and I am a seventh-generation Iowan,” she said. “Iowa is the land of milk and honey.”

She added, “We want the United States to be the best place for job creation in the world, and we can be. We need to cut taxes so that we can have jobs here in the United States, beginning with Iowa. They’ve got Iowa’s money in Washington, DC. Let’s bring it home!”

Bachmann will be back in Iowa in two weeks when she will speak at the Family Leader in Iowa City on April 11.

In the latest edition of the Iowa Independent‘s presidential Power Rankings, Bachmann was seen by pundits and scholars to be gaining ground on Mike Huckabee in the Hawekeye State.

Three of Rep. Michele Bachmann’s former staffers are backing her fellow Minnesotan and presumptive competitor for the 2012 Republican nomination, Tim Pawlenty. Ron Carey, who served as Bachmann’s chief of staff in 2010; Gina Countryman, Bachmann’s 2010 congressional campaign manager; and Tim Gould, who served as Bachmann’s Constituent Services Officer in 2010 are all vocally supporting Pawlenty for 2012.

Countryman’s Twitter account has become a “T-Paw 12″ hub, promoting a “twibbon” for Pawlenty’s exploratory bid:

Gould, who worked for Bachmann in 2010, has adopted the twibbon — a graphic modifying one’s Twitter icon — and was the co-host (PDF) of a fundraiser for Pawlenty’s Freedom First PAC in 2010, though that was before Bachmann started her potential 2012 bid.

Carey, who ran Bachmann’s office in 2010, told Fox News last week that he’s backing Pawlenty over Bachmann because he stands a better shot at winning.

“Electability is a very, very high attribute you have to have this year to win,” he said. “I don’t want to have an emotionally filled endeavor only to get 35 percent [of the vote] in November [2012].”

Potential presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and his wife will be in Minneapolis in May to present their film “Rediscovering God in America,” a Citizens United production. The event is hosted by the Minnesota Family Council, according to an event listing on the Newt Gingrich’s campaign website. The film recounts Gingrich’s assertion that the founding fathers envisioned a religious United States and decries secularism.

The film is produced by Citizens United, of corporate expenditure fame. The “American values” film is narrated by Gingrich along with Callista Gingrich, his third wife and former mistress. Though the film and associated book are over two years, old, the Minnesota Family Council will be bringing it to Minneapolis. In 2009, Gingrich made the assertion at a “Rediscovering God in America” event that Christians are surrounded by paganism in America. The Minneapolis event will take place on May 17 and information about the location is not yet available.

Here’s a video clip of Gingrich talking about “Rediscovering God in America.”

And here’s the official trailer for the film:

Rep. Michele Bachmann made her debut in New Hampshire with a series five appearances on Friday and Saturday as part of her “all in for 2012″ tour. At one stop, a troop of AIDS activists crashed her speech and a gaffe on U.S. history put Bachmann’s visit in the headlines.

At her speech to the New Hampshire Republican party on Saturday morning, Bachmann praised the state’s caucus process, repeated her “Hu’s your daddy?” line, called President Bush a big spender and said the Medicare will be flat broke by 2017.

She also again talked about defunding “Obamacare.”

“I don’t know why our Republican leadership hasn’t taken this up in DC,” Bachmann said of her efforts to defund health care reform. She added that she was appalled by the $105 billion she says was hidden in the health care reform bill.

“I’m insulted that I was not given this information before the vote. That’s not what our brave men and women… it’s not the kind of nation they put their lives on the line for,” she said. “This is a crime against democracy not to reveal this to the American people.”

Fact-checkers have cried foul over the statement; last week, the Washington Post gave the statement “four Pinnochios” for prizing “bombast” over facts, while Politifact called it “barely true.” And on Saturday, a Star Tribune editorial chastised Bachmann for the claim, stating that “she personally needs a refresher course on the Ten Commandments – specifically, the one that warns against bearing false witness.” The paper notes that the $105 billion was really $103.1 billion and that there’s “no basis for Bachmann’s claim that the implementation money was inserted ‘secretly.’”

Halfway through her speech, a group of college students crashed the ballroom where the speech was held shouting, “Michele Bachmann, we insist! End AIDS treatment waiting lists!”

As the group was escorted out, Bachmann said, “It’s okay; they just brought the buses in from Madison, Wisconsin.”

But it was a gaffe earlier in the speech that generated weekend chatter by political pundits. “You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord,” she said, referencing Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Concord Hymn,” an ode to the lives lost at the start of the American Revolution in Concord, Massachusetts, not New Hampshire.

Bachmann was quick to admit the historical mistake. In a message on Facebook, she said, “So I misplaced the battles Concord and Lexington by saying they were in New Hampshire. It was my mistake, Massachusetts is where they happened. New Hampshire is where they are still proud of it!”

And not to escape without a dig at President Obama, she added in a later Facebook posting, “And by the way… That will be the last time I borrow President Obama’s tele-promoter!”

Sources close to Bachmann told CNN over the weekend that she is leaning towards a run for president in 2012.

“She is leaning more toward doing it,” an anonymous Republican told the network. “The people she’s meeting on the ground, they love her. She is definitely more encouraged when she makes these trips.”

Conservative commentator George Will disagreed with his fellow panelists on CBS’s This Week on Sunday morning that Bachmann would be a formidable contender.

“She’s not among the serious contenders,” explained Will at the culmination of a roundtable discussion focused on Bachmann’s political ambitions. “We know who settles presidential elections, they’re independent voters. Independent voters are not inflamed, and not inflamed in the way that some of the marginal Republican candidates are.”

Here’s video of that exchange:

Following the gaffe and protest at Saturday morning’s speech, Bachmann riled up the Granite State Patriots Liberty PAC meeting later on Saturday.

“I think it’s not about being polite, I think it’s about being honest,” she said of her outspoken nature.

She also tried to tie President Obama to the TARP bailout passed and signed into law by President Bush.

“Did you ever think you’d live to see the day when your government would own the largest banks, the largest insurance company, the largest auto maker and over half the homes in the united states?” she asked. “All of that happened within 12 months of Barack Obama becoming president of the United States.”

She said the United Nations “would love to see American sovereignty diminished,” and said she’s fine with forcing a government shutdown in order to defund “Obamacare.”

“I’ve decided to draw a line in the sand. We will repeal ‘Obamacare,’” she said. “We cannot allow this to abide in the United States of America. It will change our nation forever.”

She concluded, “The nation was founded on a miracle and a miracle can happen again.”

In Florida on Friday, Rep. Michele Bachmann told the Palm Beach Post that she’s been traveling the country to gauge national support if she decides to run for president and that she’s gotten a “fantastic reception” from activists in Iowa and South Carolina. Political prognosticators have also started to pay attention to Bachmann as a potential contender for the 2012 Republican nomination.

Bachmann told the post Post that she’s consulting with her family and that she’s testing the waters “because there’s no sense in running if I wouldn’t have the support of the people.”

She said the presidential campaign can get in the way of the conservative narrative. “This is what my worry has been, that we would spend two years playing the parlor game, indulging ourselves in the parlor game of who will be our nominee, and meanwhile we lose the narrative,” Bachmann said.

On Meet the Press on Sunday, Bachmann hammered home her own narrative: that $105 billion in secret spending she says was hidden by President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the Affordable Care Act.

In four instances during that interview Bachmann refused to answer questions and instead repeated that claim, mentioning it eight times in 12 minutes.

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David Gregory ended the interview by asking, “When will you decide about a run for the presidency?”

Bachmann responded, “I think there’s a normal course of events when a decision like that will be made, and, and if I choose to go down that road, I’ll make the decision.”

When and if that decision is made, it could hurt former Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s chances, notes Stu Rothenberg.

But Bachmann, a three-term Congresswoman whose support on the political right and among social conservatives rivals former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s, remains a potential problem for Pawlenty.

Although the two Minnesota Republicans don’t necessarily appeal to the same people, Bachmann’s presence in the Republican contest would undoubtedly draw some Minnesota money and support that would otherwise go to Pawlenty, even if only because he was the “local” guy in the race.

After all, Bachmann represents the most Republican district in the Gopher State. President George W. Bush won her district comfortably with 57 percent in 2004, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) carried it with 53 percent in 2008.

He adds that Bachmann has appeal as a native Iowan in that early caucus state, but that she will not be the GOP nominee.

“As the GOP race for president starts to take shape, it’s worth remembering two things. First, Bachmann is not going to be the Republican nominee,” he said. “And second, in a crowded Republican contest in Iowa next February, anything could happen.”

Chris Cillizza added Bachmann to his top ten list for the first time last week:

9. Michele Bachmann: The Minnesota Republican House member is doing everything she can to give off the impression she is seriously considering a run for president. The latest sign? She will headline a fundraiser later this month to benefit the New Hampshire Republican Party. For tea-party aligned voters, Bachmann is a rock star; she was mobbed everywhere she went during last month’s CPAC gathering and her speech brought wild applause from the audience. But, Bachmann has little real political operation and virtually zero demonstrated ability — or willingness — to court voters outside of her conservative base. Still, if former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin doesn’t run, Bachmann would be the candidate most likely to emerge as the tea party pick. (Previous ranking: N/A)

Though Rothenberg thinks Bachmann might hurt Pawlenty, Cillizza gives Pawlenty a top shot at the nomination at this point in the election season.

2. Tim Pawlenty: The former Minnesota governor is starting to win people — including the Fix — over. He is diligently working at building organizations in Iowa and New Hampshire and there are some signs that those efforts are paying off as he placed a solid third in a January straw poll in the Granite State. The biggest knock on Pawlenty is that he’s too nice and/or not charismatic enough to win the nomination. But, Pawlenty is improving — his 2011 speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference was far better than the 2010 edition — and, given the flaws in the field, being too nice isn’t all that bad. As a result, Pawlenty is the name you hear on more and more lips when asking neutral Republicans who they think their nominee might be. And that’s a great place to be right now. (Previous ranking: 5)

In his latest Hollywood-style, highly produced YouTube video, Tim Pawlenty attempts to court the tea party movement. The former governor, whose potential campaign for the GOP nomination in 2012 has remained in the single digits in polls of Republican voters, calls the tea party “A New Birth of Freedom.” The spot concludes with a clip from Pawlenty’s weekend speech to the tea party summit in Arizona. It’s the third such video to be released by his PAC, Freedom First.

That concluding segment — in which Pawlenty, waving a pocket-sized version of the Constitution, shouted, “This is our guide, this is our constitution. We the people of the United States will rise up again. We will take back our government!” — rankled The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait:

Why do I say this is inflammatory? Because conservatives are writing President Obama completely out of the American political tradition. Conservatives claim not only to have a superior vision for securing American prosperity, which is an understandable thing for a political movement to believe, but to represent the sole legitimate custodians of the Constitution. It follows from all this that Obama represents a unique threat to American freedom, and moreover — a point that is often made explicit — that the threat he poses requires a response that goes beyond normal politics. The whole metaphor of the Tea Party is to re-imagine conservatism as a proto-revolutionary guerrilla response to tyranny, rather than a movement that operates through normal political channels.

Watch it:

Pawlenty’s Arizona speech also grabbed the attention of The Guardian’s Michael Tomasky, who keyed in on the section where Pawlenty thanked the tea party for “standing up to the ruling class.” He writes:

We’ve really hit a bizarro historical point. When did 200, or even 2,000, years of agreed-upon reality get turned on its head so that now “the ruling class” is not the actual objective ruling class but a bunch of school teachers and child services workers in Wisconsin?

The Abacoa Golf Club in Jupiter, Fla., will be host to Rep. Michele Bachmann on March 4 as she meets with local tea party groups, Florida media outlets are reporting. The trip to Florida is among many that the possible presidential contender has planned for the spring, including trips to New Hampshire, Iowa and New Orleans. Bachmann has just come off trips to Iowa, Montana and South Carolina.

According to the St. Petersburg Times, “She is expected to discuss spending and constitutional issues at Abacoa Golf Club in Jupiter from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. RSVP to madason31@aol.com to reserve a seat.”

Politico reports that the event costs $2 per person to offset costs.

Bachmann’s trip to Florida comes on the heels of a similar trip by fellow Minnesotan and possible presidential contender Tim Pawlenty.

Minnesota’s two potential presidential candidates have weighed in on President Barack Obama’s decision to halt his administration’s defense of the federal ban on same-sex marriage. Obama’s office says part of the law may be unconstitutional, but Tim Pawenty said he was “disappointed” by the news and Rep. Michele Bachmann took the opportunity to raise money.

“I firmly believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, as President Obama told us he believed in 2008,” Pawlenty said in a statement. “But now President Obama and his Justice Department would have us believe that traditional marriage laws are unconstitutional.”

He criticized the administration for not doing its job.

“I oppose the Justice Department’s political decision to reverse its policy defending the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal statute passed overwhelmingly by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton,” he said. “The job of the Justice Department is to enforce and defend laws passed by Congress and signed by the President.”

He added, “I am disappointed that the President and his Justice Department have abdicated this responsibility, all for the sake of partisan political gain.”

Bachmann sent a fundraising email to supporters asking them to sign a petition she created.

“This is just the beginning in our fight to repeal Barack Obama in 2012,” she wrote. “Had Barack Obama been on the ballot in 2010, he would have gone down in a fiery defeat. Yet he continues to push his far-left, socialist agenda on the American people. And today, he has declared war on marriage.”

She added, “I will continue to do everything in my power to fight back against Barack Obama’s attacks on marriage and I hope you will join me by adding your name to my “‘Support Traditional Marriage’ petition.”

She also asked for money: “Your contribution will enable me to spread this petition to millions of conservative activists across the country.”