Sarah Palin told Fox News listeners last night that the debate, co-hosted by CNN and the Tea Party Express, validated the movement and that she no longer considers the end of September her deadline for making a decision on a presidential run.

“I was very pleased with this debate and very excited about the validation of the tea party movement,” Palin told Fox’s Greta VanSusten. “The winner in this really, I believe, was the tea party movement and that validation of what it is that we’ve been talking about for two years now.”

Palin had high praise for former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, noting that he was the only one to discuss going after government fraud, waste and “crony capitalism.”

“Hopefully what he talked about could help teach his colleagues up their on the stage,” she added, speculating that some of the 2012 candidates “don’t have a real strong record to stand on” when it comes to such discussions.

But “any of them” with their “pro-private sector” beliefs, she said, would be better than the failed policies of the Obama administration.

When it comes to her own potential presidential aspirations, however, Palin continues to play coy.

“I’m not going to let the media tell me or dictate when a drop-dead date should be,” Palin said. “I still have that same old dopey, same old answer that I’m sure you guys are getting sick of hearing, and that is I’m still thinking about it, praying about it, contemplating, talking to my family. I’m sick of giving the same answer, believe me. I’m anxious to give an answer and get on with life one way or the other. But whichever direction life takes me, I’m going to continue to speak up for we the people and that tea Party movement and the mama grizzlies.”

Her present role, she said, is to keep raising issues that candidates should be talking about while on the stump because she believes those in the campaign are following her lead.

AMES, Iowa — Tensions reached their apex Thursday night during the Fox News/Washington Examiner GOP presidential debate, sending Republican enthusiasm through the roof with less than 48 hours until the Ames Straw Poll gates open Saturday.

Debate topics were typical: conflict in the Middle East, American’s floundering economy, immigration, states’ rights, and of course, hot button social issues. Not to be missed were references to dog food and Mickey Mouse.

Atypical? How candidates came out swinging — at each other, at President Barack Obama and even at the debate moderators.

Twice, Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Straw Poll favorite and tea party darling, and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty traded heated words about the other’s political records and policies.

Poised and never appearing flustered, Bachmann deflected attack after attack fired by Pawlenty, including her compromise on raising Minnesota’s state tax on cigarettes in 2005. Pawlenty was then governor, Bachmann, a state lawmaker.

Bachmann explained she initially opposed the tax, but later compromised upon learning of a provision in the same legislation that gave strong support to the anti-abortion community and platform.

“You can get money wrong, but you can’t get life wrong,” she said in the debate.

Pawlenty, who has been slow to gain momentum in the Hawkeye State, came back swinging, claiming the congresswoman’s D.C. record was void of anything substantial.

“As to her record: she’s done wonderful things in her life, absolutely wonderful things, but it’s an undisputed fact that her record in Congress in nonexistent,” Pawlenty said. “She’s got a record of misstating and making false statements.”

“You’re killing us,” Pawlenty told Bachmann, drawing audible reaction from the audience.

The congresswoman remained on point, countering the governor by comparing his own record to Obama’s, stating: “You said the era of small business is over. That sounds a lot like Barack Obama if you ask me.”

Within the first hour of the debate, Bachmann and Pawlenty’s volleys almost overshadowed the other six candidates. Forty-five minutes passed in the debate with only a couple minutes from former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, a Catholic Conservative from Pennsylvania. Finally, in the second hour, a frustrated Santorum called Fox News moderator Bret Baier out for not giving him the same face time as Bachmann and Pawlenty, raising his hand and declaring, “I haven’t gotten to say a lot.”

Santorum and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) sparred over American intervention in Iran, with the long-time congressman blaming the U.S. for hostilities in Iran.

“Anyone who says Iran is not a threat is not seeing clearly,” Santorum said.

The former senator also had his chance to stand out late in the debate, when he gave an impassioned argument on why the debt ceiling had to be raised — a stance the other candidates, particularly Bachmann, have taken vehemently against. Santorum maintained while it had to be raised, it should have been done so with a balanced budget in place.

Prominent Atlanta businessman Herman Cain seemed to spend a significant amount of his face time clarifying past comments and telling America that it “needs to learn to take a joke.” However, Cain also touted his private sector experience in repairing the economy.

“It is imperative we get this economy going in the in next 90 days,” after the next president is inaugurated, he said. One of the foundations to that is making tax rates permanent and setting a maximum tax rate for corporations.

Frontrunner Mitt Romney, who earlier in the day incited political fireworks at the Iowa State Fair, stuck to oft-heard phrases on his campaign stops.

But when asked about the bipartisan legislation that raised the debt ceiling, Romney bluntly said, “I’m not going to eat Barack Obama’s dog food. What he served up is not what I would have done as president of the United States.”

Fellow candidate Newt Gingrich, who served as U.S. House Speaker in the 1990′s, was even more blunt, calling the super-committee borne from the debt ceiling drama “dumb,” and characterized debate moderator Chris Wallace’s questions as “playing Mickey Mouse games.”

Obama was the target of several political missals from the candidates, who admonished the president’s economic and fiscal policies, as well as his military strategies overseas.

New to the candidate stage was former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr. Though previously pledging to skip Iowa during his campaign, Huntsman, who was also Ambassador to China under the Obama administration, visited the Iowa State Fair before the debate.

Huntsman stood out from the other seven participants on stage: the practicing Mormon believes “in traditional marriage first, but also civil unions. Our country can do better when it comes to equality,” and added the issue of marriage should go to the states. Most of the other candidates who spoke on the issue, with the exception of Paul, support a federal amendment defining marriage between one-man-one-woman exclusively.

Huntsman also has not publicly presented an economic development plan. However, he stated Thursday he would repeat the policies implemented in his native Utah.

“I’m going to do exactly what I did as governor. It’s called leadership,” he said. “We cut taxes historically and created the most business-friendly environment in the country.”

And to those who are still flirting with a 2012 bid? Bring it on, candidates said.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry — expected to join the fray this weekend — and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin have not officially declared candidacy, but should they choose to, their would-be opponents are ready to welcome them to the field.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin threw more fuel on the speculative fire by publishing a Facebook note focused on tackling national debt, saying that “real leaders” need to emerge to defeat President Barack Obama next fall.

The note — “The Sugar Daddy Has Run Out of Sugar, Now We Need New Leaders” — was published Saturday. Quoting and paraphrasing former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and author Earnest Hemingway, the former Governor and failed 2008 vice presidential candidate chastised Obama’s economic policies.

“We’ve been slowly going broke for years, but now it’s happening all at once as the world’s capital markets are demanding action from us, yet Obama assumes we’ll just go borrow another cup of sugar from some increasingly impatient neighbor,” Palin wrote in the note. “We cannot knock on anyone’s door anymore. And we don’t have any time to wait for Washington to start behaving responsibly.”

Palin also several times reiterated the need for “new leaders” or “real leaders,” though she did not specify if she was talking about herself or a candidate in the fray already.

However, Palin did not hold back talking about actions she took during her own governorship of Alaska.

“As governor, I made the largest veto cuts in my state’s history, and I didn’t make many friends doing it. But we will never recover, we will never get free of devastating debt, unless we make tough choices now,” the note said. “We don’t hear talk like this from leaders in D.C. or from those running for office because they say what they think we want to hear rather than what must be said.”

Palin has played coy about 2012 so far, and some political analysts have doubted a White House bid from her. Though daughter Bristol Palin — with whom Palin appeared at a Mall of America book-signing late last month — told Fox News her mother has made a decision about running for president, nothing has been announced. She has not made many trips to early states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, and during a recent trip to Pella, Iowa, Palin spoke as though she may back a candidate rather than be a candidate.

Palin may be finished with the “will-she-or-won’t-she” games, since she indicated Saturday no strong candidates have entered the 2012 presidential race.

“We need real leaders who will put aside their own political self-interest to do what is right for the nation,” she ended the note. “And if they don’t emerge… well, America has a do-over in November 2012.”

Here entree into the race could complicate things for Rep. Michele Bachmann’s presidential candidacy, as the Minnesota Independent’s Jon Collins reported last week. Palin could wait until Thanksgiving, at the latest, to throw her hat in the ring, says University of Iowa political science professor and GOP activist Tim Hagle. The soft GOP field, he added, “gives that opportunity for someone who really has that star-power and pizzazz and charisma to scoop up a lot of these people.”

“Bachmann seems to have a lot of star-power — but not as much as Palin.”

Minnesota congresswoman and Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has been rocketing up polls in early primary and caucus states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Some grassroots activists, as the Iowa Independent reported, are convinced that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will jump into the race. How would that affect Bachmann’s shot at the nomination in these early-voting states?

On the surface, Palin and Bachmann have much in common, including their support of the tea party movement. But the entry of Palin into the race wouldn’t necessarily hurt Bachmann more than most other candidates, University of Iowa Political Science Professor Tim Hagle told the Minnesota Independent.

In a race where former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum and Herman Cain are all jockeying for the same tea party crowd, a new entry would likely pull from all those conservative candidates.

“That group of voters that all those candidates are competing for would be divided up and that would leave room for a slightly more moderate Republican to come in and perhaps to get a victory,” Hagle said.

Bachmann has risen into second place behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who’s widely considered to be the moderate in the race, in early polling in Iowa and New Hampshire. But being in the lead without Palin to attract some of the early criticism could be dangerous for Bachmann.

“If it looks like she is — as people have been describing her — the alternative to Romney, then it means she’s probably going to come under more fire,” Hagle said.

Still, support in early polls for all Republican candidates is softer than in recent years, opening up the possibility that voters would more willingly switch their allegiances to a late entry like Palin.

“It gives that opportunity for someone who really has that star-power and pizzazz and charisma to scoop up a lot of these people,” Hagle said. “Bachmann seems to have a lot of star-power — but not as much as Palin.”

If conservatives don’t coalesce around one inspiring candidate, Palin could potentially wait as long as Thanksgiving to enter the race, Hagle said, because she is so well-known in conservative circles — although no candidate has previously had much success with such a late entry in the state.

One of Bachmann’s main strengths over Palin are her favorability numbers. In the most recent Iowa polls, she came in at the top with likely Republican primary voters, with only 12 percent viewing her unfavorably. Despite press coverage of some high-profile gaffes, Bachmann managed to carry a similar favorability rating into the poll release this week from New Hampshire.

Palin, because she is already well-known, will have trouble shifting the fairly high negative opinions people have already formed of her, said Hagle, whereas views of Bachmann have had less time to harden.

For both Bachmann and Palin, a repeat of the 2008 presidential campaign, where people construed some Democratic attacks on Palin to be sexist, could backfire for Democrats, Hagle said.

“It caught a lot of Republicans off balance, they didn’t expect that kind of attack on Palin,” Hagle said. “Even though Bachmann got a little of that already, I think there would be much more push-back this time.”

Bristol Palin, with parents Sarah and Todd, visited the Mall of America Wednesday for a family book-signing. The “Dancing With the Stars” contestant signed copies of “Not Afraid of Life,” while her mom signed copies of her books. Award-winning photojournalist Kathy Easthagen was there to capture these scenes.

Rules for the event were strict, presumably to ensure both the safety of the family and sales of the books. The line started at 5 a.m., and according to rules set up in advance, wristbands — blue, not the typical red associated with the GOP — were distributed, but only to “those who buy Bristol’s book. ”

The rules also stated:

• You must have a copy of Bristol’s book to purchase either of Sarah’s books.
• Each person must be present to get a wristband. They’re not transferable.
• No belongings or bags allowed on stage for the signing.
• No memorabilia will be signed; no personalization allowed.
• No photos on stage; “cameras and cell phones are to be put away once you reach the stage stairs”
• Stay in line. If you leave to use the bathroom or get food for a short period, someone in your party must stay in line at all times.
• If you leave for an extended period, you must go to the end of the line.

Media access was strict, too: Photographers were confined to a small space and given only five minutes to shoot.

Autograph seekers were funneled through barricades and cords to get to a table where the Palins greeted them. Mall officials say that around 1,500 people showed up over the course of the day, and the Palins signed some 700 books.

Vincent Spinner, 18, of Brownsville, Minn., says he woke up at 2 a.m. to drive from southern Minnesota to meet Palin.

He arrived at 5 a.m., and was third in line to meet the former Alaska governor.

Just behind Spinner, at fourth and fifth in line, were Marie Newman (above) of Shoreview and her 26-year-old daughter-in-law Alex Newman of Blaine.

Having paged through Bristol’s book while in line, and having already read Sarah’s, the Newmans noted that Sarah and Bristol (above) share their values about family, the military and aspirations for the country. Alex and her husband met in Iraq while they were serving in the National Guard.

A woman named Nance (she wouldn’t give her name because she’s involved with political campaigns) came to the event on her way home to the Duluth area after traveling to Pella, Iowa, to see the premier of the new documentary on Palin. Pointing out her bracelet, Nance noted that Sarah Palin has the same one, made by a friend of hers. “I hope that Sarah will be wearing it tonight,” she said. “She wasn’t wearing it last night.”

To see all of Easthagen’s photos from the event, visit the Minnesota Independent’s Flickr page. All photos by Kathy Easthagen.

Rep. Michele Bachmann avoided all attempts by ABC News personality George Stephanopoulos to get her to confirm that she’s in for 2012, but made clear that she intends to compare herself with President Barack Obama and not other candidates in the GOP field.

Speaking from New Hampshire and noting that she’ll be making her announcement in Waterloo in June, Bachmann said, “I compare myself to Barack Obama, not to any of the other Republican candidates.”

The response came to a question from Stephanopoulos on if there was enough room in the 2012 GOP field for both Bachmann and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who are both considered favorites of the tea party movement.

In addition, and despite numerous attempts by Stephanopoulos, Bachmann would not say, if she were president, whether or not she would sign the U.S. House budget, also known as the Ryan Budget, into law.

… Stephanopoulos: I’m a little bit confused by your position. You voted for [the Ryan budget], but now say that the support comes with an asterisk. So, would President Bachmann sign the bill that Congresswoman Bachmann voted for?

Bachmann: Well, I certainly did support the bill that Paul Ryan put forward. The asterisk is dealing with this: Paul Ryan is exactly right. We have to make Medicare solvent. Right now we know it is going into insolvency. The asterisk is that people don’t recognize that this is about people who are 55 and under. I don’t want a 78-year-old woman to think that Medicare is going to be pulled out from under her because it won’t. It is the 55-and-under plan, so the reforms will affect people 55 and under. That’s an important piece.

Stephanopoulos: Oh. OK. So you would sign — if you were President, you would sign the Congressman’s plan into law?

Bachmann: Well, the other portion that I think is very important is that in the middle of dealing with all insurance and numbers, we can’t forget humanity. What I would want to focus on, George, are cures. Cures for Alzehiemer’s, cures for diabetes that occur in senior citizens. And I think just like polio, when we were able to see polio successfully eradicated from the United States, that’s what I also want to focus on are cures, particularly as we have an increasing senior population.

Stephanopoulos: Ahhh, I understand that. But does that mean that you would sign the bill or not?

Bachmann: Well, I think some version of this bill because Paul is right. We have to sustain Medicare. We can’t let it just go away for senior citizens. And that’s exactly what he is trying to do. I agree with what Paul is trying to do. …

Watch the interview:

We’ve heard Rep. Michele Bachmann’s name bandied about as a runningmate for Sarah Palin in 2012, we’ve seen the Draft Bachmann website, and we’ve followed the Sixth Congressional District Republican as she’s criss-crossed the country hinting at a possible bid for the GOP endorsement for president. Now CNN reports that Bachmann’s presidential plans will be getting a whole lot clearer soon: She’ll reportedly form an exploratory committee in early June.

Bachmann — who has recently made multiple visits to key states for presidential candidates, including Iowa and New Hampshire — could form a committee sooner, a source close to her tells CNN.

“She’s been telling everyone early summer,” the source said. “If you [debate sponsors] come to us and say, ‘To be in our debates, you have to have an exploratory committee,’ then we’ll say, ‘Okay, fine…I’ll go file the forms.’”

Three GOP primary debates are scheduled before or during that timeframe, one on May 2 in California, one May 5 in South Carolina, and an early June one in New Hampshire.

Fellow Minnesota Republican Tim Pawlenty announced the formation of his exploratory committee earlier this week.

CNN also reports that Iowa Republican state Sen. Kent Sorenson is likely to be Bachmann’s political director for the state. Our sister site, the Iowa Independent, reported last week that Sorenson has publicly put his support behind Bachmann.

“There is a void out there that needs to be filled,” he said. “I hope she decides to run. She is somebody that has the credentials to fire up the grassroots. She would be someone who could unite different factions of the party. She is a strong fiscal and social conservative.”

The site also notes recent legislation introduced by Sorenson, and it’s on a topic Bachmann has recently commented on. It would require anyone running for president to produce a birth certificate and make it available for public inspection.

Bachmann, who headlined a conference with key “birthers” last September, made this pledge last week: “I tell you one thing, if I was ever to run for President of the United States, I think the first thing I would do in the first debate is offer my birth certificate so we can get that off the table.”

While he’s still at single digits among Republicans in New Hampshire, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty scored third place in the WMUR Granite State Poll, which was released on Thursday. Pawlenty polled ahead of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, and tied Mike Huckabee at 7 percent. The strong showing by Pawlenty could be an indication of Palin’s sinking support following her “blood libel” remarks in January.

Mitt Romney topped the poll with 40 percent followed by Rudy Giuliani with 10 percent. Pawlenty and Huckabee came in at 7 percent, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich at 6 percent and Ron Paul at 5 percent.

Pawlenty has gone up in a ranks in New Hampshire over the last year, though his position still seems volatile. However, there’s still a year of campaigning until the first primary.

In July 2010, Pawlenty ranked near the bottom of a Public Policy Polling poll with just 3 percent and was beaten by Romney, Gingrich, Paul, Huckabee and Palin.

In November, a PPP poll had Pawlenty at 4 percent behind Romney, Huckabee, Gingrich and Palin.

A Jan. 7, 2011, poll by NH Journal had Pawlenty at the bottom with just 4 percent. Romney, Palin, Huckabee, Gingrich and Paul all did better.

In a January 22, 2011 WMUR straw poll at a Republican gathering, Pawlenty scored third with 8 percent and was ahead of Palin and Giuliani but got beat by Paul and Romney.

Palin made her remarks about “blood libel” in mid-January following the controversy over her use of crosshairs on a map over a number of Congressional candidates, including that of Rep. Gabriele Giffords, who was shot in Tucson. The two polls conducted since then show her trailing Pawlenty in particular and other candidates generally.

In an interview released in Christianity Today Thursday, Tim Pawlenty asserted that the United States was “founded under God” and that the founding fathers put that into the nation’s founding documents. In the wide-ranging interview, Pawlenty talked about his faith, his reversal on cap and trade, and the possibility of running against Rep. Michele Bachmann for the 2012 Republican nomination for president.

“If I make a faith-related comment, I usually quote from the Bible, often from the Old Testament,” Pawlenty told Christianity Today. “I remind people that our country is founded under God, and the founders thought that was an important perspective. I watch my tone so I don’t get judgmental or angry about issues. I try to express myself in ways that are measured and appropriate and hopefully civil and positive. Lastly, I try not to say that God is on my side, but I strive to be on God’s side.”

Christianity Today’s Sarah Pulliam Bailey asked him, “Your book encourages Christians to be involved in public issues. At what point might Christians rely too much on political solutions to current problems?”

Pawlenty responded, “I started with the perspective of someone who says that faith is separate from public law and public service; it really isn’t. We have, as a country, a founding perspective that we’re founded under God; our founding documents reference and acknowledge God, and acknowledge that our rights and privileges come from our Creator.”

Despite that claim, the United States Constitution makes no reference to a creator or God. The Declaration of Independence merely refers to a creator and to “Nature’s God.”

In the interview, the magazine also asked about Bachmann and Sarah Palin. “You seem to get comparisons to Palin and Rep. Michelle Bachmann,” the interviewer stated.

“[A comparison to] Sarah Palin, of course, is a compliment,” Pawlenty responded. “She’s a force of nature, she’s kind of in a league of her own when it comes to attention and the media’s focus on her so far. I don’t know if she’s going to run or not, but I think she’s a remarkable leader. I know Congresswoman Bachmann, I campaigned for her, I consider her a friend and I have a positive and good relationship with her as well. Voters will have to choose the style of who they want representing the party as a nominee.”

Pawlenty was also asked about cap and trade, a policy he once backed.

“During your term as governor, you supported reductions in greenhouse gases and a regional cap and trade plan,” Bailey asked. “What measures should the federal government support to care for the environment?”

“All of us should be in favor of reducing pollution, but we need to do that in a way that doesn’t wreck the economy. I came to the conclusion after looking at it very carefully that cap and trade is the wrong approach. I think it is a ham-fisted approach that is government-centered and top down, and the burdens it would have visited on the economy were unwise and really unbearable.”

In 2007, he thought cap and trade was great.

“If you unleash the requirements and incentives and attractive features of a market, people will respond to it,” he told Minnesota Public Radio. “Some will respond by reducing pollution directly. Others will respond by buying credits or offsets in the marketplace, with the ultimate same net effect.”

Public Policy Polling released a nationwide poll of potential candidates for the 2012 Republican nomination against President Obama on Thursday. Rep. Michele Bachmann would lose in such a matchup by 18 points, but is competitive with friend — and potential rival — Sarah Palin, whose number have dipped since November 2010.

Bachmann garnered 33 percent against Obama’s 51 percent, putting her at the bottom of the pack of five candidates polled by PPP. Seventeen percent were undecided. Obama beat Mitt Romney at 48 to 43 percent, Mike Huckabee with 49 to 44 percent, Newt Gingrich by 51 to 39 percent and Palin with 55 to 38 percent.

Bachmann’s 18-point deficit is similar to Palin’s 17-percent lag. Palin’s numbers have dropped significantly since PPP last polled in November 2010 when Palin was within 9 points of Obama.

Bachmann had a net unfavorable rating with 22 percent viewing her as favorable and 31 percent viewing her unfavorably. Forty-eight percent had no opinion of her.

The polls authors said that Obama had some of his best polling in recent months.

“Barack Obama’s in his strongest position for reelection in our polling since 2009,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “Democrats have really rallied around him since the party’s defeat in November and he continues to benefit from a pretty weak field of potential opponents.”

In a new Washington Post/ABC poll, Obama has a 54 percent approval rating. Gallup and CNN polls also show him with a 53 percent approval rating.