Michele Bachmann courts conservative Iowa voters on bus tour

In the two days she has traversed Iowa on a bus, Michele Bachmann has illustrated her strategy for the state’s caucuses — stitching together the evangelical voters who held major sway in the 2008 voting and the “tea party” activists whose power has risen since then.

Before hundreds of evangelical worshipers in a cavernous megachurch Sunday, Bachmann delivered a deeply personal speech tailor-made for their concerns, detailing how a miscarriage cemented her views on abortion and describing her personal connection to Israel and the moment she accepted Jesus Christ as her savior.

Bachmann said she was raised a Lutheran but didn’t “get it” until one morning when she was 16 and attended a prayer meeting before school in her cheerleader uniform.

“It was in 1972, Nov. 1, when I bowed my knee and gave my heart to Jesus Christ, when I recognized, as the Bible says, all have sinned, all have fallen short, all need a savior,” she said. “And I came to the realization that even though I thought I was a nice person — I wasn’t doing drugs, I wasn’t wild, I wasn’t drinking — it didn’t matter. I was a sinner. I needed a savior. It changed me; it changed every part of me.”

On Saturday, Bachmann spoke to a tea party rally in Des Moines, a natural setting for the U.S. representative from Minnesota who founded the tea party caucus in the House. As attendees waved “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, Bachmann proposed auditing the Federal Reserve, decried the declining strength of the dollar and touted her opposition to the economic stimulus, the new healthcare law and Wall Street bailouts.

“Do you realize how close to the edge we are as a country?” she asked more than 100 people gathered beneath a blistering sun in front of the gold-capped Iowa statehouse. “But we are a forward-looking people. We love the next generation, and I am here to tell you I am unwilling to saddle my children and your children and your neighbors’ children with debt that we can’t possibly pay back. We will not do that. That’s immoral to the next generation. We will not steal from our children any longer.”

The appearances were part of a 10-stop, three-day venture across the state that will inaugurate the 2012 primary season with its caucuses. Bachmann also hit popular politicking sites such as a Taylor’s Maid-Rite — a purveyor of loose-meat sandwiches — in Marshalltown and an Iowa Cubs baseball game. Her staff declined an offer for Bachmann to throw out the first pitch; she hadn’t had time to practice.

One poll shows Bachmann in a statistical tie with nominal national front-runner Mitt Romney among likely GOP voters in the Iowa caucuses.

The evangelical voters to whom she appealed Sunday demonstrated their power in 2008 when they propelled former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to victory in the caucuses.

As with the tea party voters, Bachmann displayed a natural affinity. At two services in the Point of Grace church, she rarely glanced at notes and punctuated her frequent references to God by pointing one French-manicured index finger at the ceiling. At one point, she bowed her head, closed her eyes and led the rapt flock in prayer for more than a minute.

She spoke of her ancestors coming to Iowa from Norway in the mid-19th century, drawn by the fertile land, of working for 50 cents an hour as a baby-sitter to help her impoverished family after her parents’ divorce, and the psychological effects of her long-ago miscarriage.

“It was devastating for us,” she said, repeating an account that has become a staple of her speeches. “It impacted us profoundly. I didn’t think of ourselves as materialistic or overly career-minded, [but] it changed something in us.”

Bachmann said she and her husband prayed together, and “we said, ‘Lord, however many children you give us, that’s what we will receive.’ ” In the end, the couple raised five children and took in 23 foster children.

“I really am the old woman in the shoe,” she said.

As with all candidates in Iowa, Bachmann’s chances depend on her ability to move from inspiring voters to organizing them to vote for her. The first traditional test of candidate organizations is next month’s straw poll in Ames. Her chief competition there may be former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who has a strong organizational edge in the state.

Her bus tour is intended to introduce her to voters and increase her name recognition. It worked with Steve and Frances Sloan of Polk City, who attended the tea party rally.

Frances Sloan, 50, did not have a good impression of Bachmann before the event, saying the congresswoman relied on too many talking points and lacked substance.

But she and her husband were impressed by her 24-minute speech on Saturday, and are now debating whether to support Bachmann or businessman Herman Cain.

“I was very impressed. She was very articulate. She’s very precise. It came from the heart,” said Steve Sloan, 57, a retiree.

seema.mehta@latimes.com