As Michele Bachmann leaves Iowa, Sarah Palin arrives for ‘The Undefeated’

Iowa, it seems, wasn’t big enough for the both of them.

As Michele Bachmann, fresh off the formal announcement of her presidential candidacy, departed the Hawkeye State to campaign in New Hampshire and South Carolina, Sarah Palin was set to arrive Tuesday to attend the premiere of “The Undefeated,” a feature-length film that reportedly places Palin’s time as a politician in Alaska in a highly favorable light.

Palin and her husband, Todd, will view the film in Pella, a small town in central Iowa two hours away from where President Obama toured an Alcoa plant earlier in the day.

Bachmann and Palin, of course, have been inextricably linked, largely through no fault of their own. Both attractive, charismatic, female conservatives have carried the banner of the tea party--and both, in their own way, have been trailblazers. But Palin’s decision to remain on the sidelines, at least for the moment, in the 2012 presidential race was largely seen as creating an opportunity for Bachmann’s candidacy.

Now, with Palin in Pella on Tuesday evening, the speculation about her presidential prospects is sure to begin climbing the Defcon scale yet again. Throwing napalm on that fire will be “The Undefeated,” a project by director Stephen Bannon that was made with Palin’s blessing, and offers a hagiographical look at her rise to national prominence.

The film is set to screen in Palin-friendly states such as Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Oklahoma, Texas, and in Republican-leaning Orange County, Calif.

Palin’s daughter, Bristol, who is promoting her new memoir, has shown that she has inherited her mother’s gift for teasing the news media. In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Monday, Bristol Palin said her mother has already decided whether she will run for president, but is keeping the decision private within the family.

Reviews of the film have been, as you might expect, as widely mixed as “The Tree of Life.” The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call took exception with the title, noting that Palin, in fact, lost the 2008 election in which she was on the GOP ticket for vice president, as well as a 2003 primary for lieutenant governor. She also left during her first term in office as governor of Alaska without standing for reelection.

The National Review, on other hand, has called it “stirring and surprisingly artistic.” Ed Morrissey, on the other hand, writing for the conservative site Hot Air, panned it as “terribly flawed” in a shot at Bannon’s direction, not Palin.

Iowa holds the first presidential contest in the nation next February and Palin, if she decides to run, would be viewed as a strong contender. But a recent Des Moines Register poll showed that the she has the same polarizing effect in the state as elsewhere. While 58 percent of Republicans surveyed view her favorably, 37 percent carry a negative view of her.

In other words, she would have some work to do to repair her image with conservatives. It appears that “The Undefeated” may be the first step toward doing just that.

Here are a couple of previews. And please, silence your phones: