RSS Feed of the blog

Contributors:

Reporter William March has covered state and national politics since 1994. Email

Reporter Mike Salinero has covered Hillsborough County government for The Tampa Tribune since 2007. Email

Reporter Lindsay Peterson has been a general assignment reporter at the Tampa Tribune since 2005, focusing on higher education since 2009. Email

TBO RNC 2012 Section

Florida Political Blogs:

• State Of Sunshine
• Pushing Rope
• Interstate4Jamming
• News Service of Florida
• FLA Politics
• Sayfie Review/

News Blog Search

Advanced Search

Most Recent Entries

• How come the poll results don’t match?
• Q Poll: Mack has long lead in primary, ties Nelson in general matchup
• Mack campaign retracts Fortuno endorsement quotes
• Coburn backs LeMieux, answering Mack’s Fortuno
• Q Poll: Romney has significant lead in Florida
• Storm The Swarm: SOCCENT deputy chief asks for technology to stop threat of Iranian small boats
• Nelson disses Obama on Castro daughter
• Hoyer to campaign with Ehrlich
• Mack dumbest speaker in Congress?  It’s complicated
• Guetzloe sentenced for not filing tax returns
• Mack asks feds to investigate LeMieux appointment
• Pentagon Reports Deaths of 7 Troops This Week in Support of Operation Enduring Freedom
• Mack demands investigation of LeMieux appointment
• Ross backs Mack
• LeMieux wins East Hillsborough GOP straw poll

More

• Breaking News
• Command Post Tampa
• Fact Finders - Databay Blog
• Guestbook: Remembering The Fallen Soldiers
• Fresh Squeezed Politics
• RNC 2012: The Road to Tampa
• Political Safari

Monthly Archives

• May 2012
• April 2012
• March 2012
• February 2012
• January 2012
• December 2011

Bachmann claims Trump endorsement

Posted Oct 17, 2011 by William March

Updated Oct 17, 2011 at 09:19 PM

Michelle Bachmann, on a telephone town hall conference call with Donald Trump, announced a few moments ago that Trump has endorsed her for president.

“Mr. Trump is on this call because he has endorsed my candidacy,” Bachmann said, introducing Trump on the conference call with supporters, in which she and Trump took questions from callers.

She heaped encomiums on Trump throughout the call. “He’s one of the most admired, respected men in business today,” she said.

“We can’t thank him enough, we want to be respectful of this time. He’s admired and respected,” she added later. “We’re extremely grateful for his time. ... We are so honored that you are on the call.”

Trump, however, had comparatively little to say about Bachmann.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for Michelle Bachmann,” he said when he first came on the call, but then talked about himself than her.

“When I left the race I was leading in the polls,” he said of his own abortive candidacy for president. He then brought up the issue he championed while running, that of Obama’s birthplace—“Someobody should continue to analyze that whole deal, by the way.”

At the end of the call, he talked a bit more about Bachmann in response to a questioner who asked how she could get out of single digits and back into the top tier of candidates, but even then sounded lukewarm at best.

“She’s a terrific person, a smart woman … respected by the other candidates.” he said. “Gov. Perry came in, he really took some of her thunder. We’ve talked about that.

“I think she’s really doing an excellent job,” he said. “She’s actually – she’ a very strong woman. She is working so hard… She can work really hard, she’s getting some excellent points across. Whether or not those points will resonate, time will tell.”