There are signs of tension between the Palin and Bachmann camps. Palin, Bachmann size each other up

Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are nominally allies, two maverick conservative women who are among the GOP’s brightest stars.

Telegenic pols with devoted followings, both appeal to the tea party faithful and would make strong runs at evangelical Christians and social conservatives in Iowa. They’re both favorite faces of Fox News, capable of raising huge amounts of money online.


But despite – or perhaps because of – what they have in common, there are signs of tensions between the camps. And the iron-clad laws of politics suggest there isn’t enough room for the two powerful personalities to occupy the same political space in 2012.

“We’ve never had really two dynamic woman run for president in the Republican caucuses,” said Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad before a Polk County GOP dinner in Des Moines Thursday that Bachmann had planned to attend. “I think it would be really interesting.”

Already, their interests are coming into conflict as Palin makes moves designed to reclaim some of the media sparkle she’s ceded to Bachmann during the spring.

The timing of Palin’s announcement Thursday of a weekend bus tour up the East Coast overshadowed what appeared to be Bachmann’s final steps toward a presidential bid, a “moneybomb” raising $250,000 in a day and a planned speech in Iowa.

At the last minute, though, Bachmann’s Thursday speech morphed into a telephone conference promising a June announcement. ( Plans were changed not for Palin but for a vote on the Patriot Act, her staff said.)

Bachmann and her staff say they’re ignoring Palin’s steps, and when asked about Palin during her by-phone presser with reporters who flew to Iowa Thursday for the speech, Bachmann lauded the Alaskan. But in the next breath she ticked off her resume, seeming to distinguish her own background from Palin’s credentials.

“Our decision is unique and we are independent of what any other candidates decide – no matter which candidate gets in or which candidate gets out,” she said, adding, “I want to make it very clear: I consider Governor Palin a friend and I have great respect for Governor Palin. But, again, I don’t believe that any two candidates are interchangeable. I believe each one of us brings our own unique skill set into this race.

“I’m looking forward to letting people know who I am – the fact that I’m a former United States federal tax litigation attorney, the fact that my husband and I are successful business owners, we started and created jobs, I have a background in education reform and in activism and I’m very proud of the work that I did in the Minnesota state Senate as well as in the United States Congress,” Bachmann said.

Publicly, Palin, Bachmann, and their top staffers have nothing but praise for one another. Palin campaigned for Bachmann last spring in Minnesota, where Palin said the women were “buddies” and Bachmann called Palin “so much one of us” and “absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.”

The former Alaska governor has also publicly defended Bachmann on several occasions, including when the Minnesota congresswoman was criticized for delivering her own televised response to the State of the Union following the official GOP response given by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

But each camp views the other with a level of suspicion, with some of Palin’s supporters seeing Bachmann as a B-list version of their icon, and some in Bachmann’s camp regarding Palin as a short-timer without Bachmann’s record or tenure.

Palin “doesn’t seem like a credible candidate,” said Iowa state Senator Kent Sorenson, who will reportedly serve as Bachmann’s political director in the state. He said he thought Bachmann would beat Palin there head-to-head if need be. “She has not made any inroads at all to people in Iowa.”

Bachmann strategist Guy Short told POLITICO Thursday: “I haven’t put any thought into what Mrs. Palin’s doing.”

Bachmann’s flood of fundraising email this week, meanwhile, was met with irritation by the online supporters who compose Palin’s semi-official political operation.

“Way to win [people] over Michele. Bug the crap out of them at work,” wrote Stacy Drake, a blogger at Conservatives4Palin, hub of Palin’s online support.

“I’ve unsubscribed to your email list TWICE,” tweeted the founder of Palin Promotions, a grassroots support group, Martha Cano, adding, “#Notinterested.”

Prominent Republicans speculated Thursday that Palin’s bus tour timing is not unconnected to the Minnesota congresswoman’s efforts.

“Every time Bachmann gets some press, Palin will get herself out there a little more,” said one well-placed observer. “There’s a little jockeying going on.”

Craig Robinson, an Iowa operative who runs TheIowaRepublican.com, said a race that features both women “would create a battle royal for the straw poll. Whoever comes out on top from [the crucial Ames Straw Poll in August] would have an advantage. They’re too similar. They attract the same people – social conservatives and tea party activists.”

If Thursday’s news cycle was any indication, Palin, universally known for her place on her party’s national ticket in 2008, can still project herself with ease far beyond Bachmann’s national reach.

National news outlets spent much of the day talking about Palin’s bus tour, while Bachmann’s call with reporters in Iowa – a prelude to a campaign announcement that was already widely expected – came in second for major political news of the day.

As for how actual voters view Bachmann, she did manage to appear at the Polk County Republican Party dinner – over a grainy and slow-moving Skype connection. Nearly 50 people left the event before she was done giving a preamble and started taking questions.

A Palin entry “would shift the balance” of the overall GOP presidential race, acknowledged Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), one of Bachmann’s closest allies in Congress. But he said that she’d be become one of a string of hopefuls playing for the same conservative vote, along with Bachmann, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum.

Palin would also face her own skeptical Republican scene in Iowa, the make-or-break early state for social conservatives where she’s already started to fade because of her absence, something her East Coast bus tour won’t change.

“If [Palin] doesn’t engage in the straw poll and the debate than I think most Iowans are going to say - ‘I like you and respect you and I like your message but if you can’t come here and dialogue with me I’m going to look somewhere else,” Steve Scheffler, who heads the Iowa Christian Alliance, told POLITICO.

However she’s going about it, Bachmann, is on track to launch an actual campaign – something that is far from clear with Palin, despite her sudden spurt of activity.

“I think both of them are very good, conservative women,” said Ryan Rhodes, an Iowa Tea Party Patriots official, whose group is planning a multi-stop bus tour through the state in the weeks before the heavily-followed Ames Straw Poll.

He’s been in touch with people connected to Bachmann, but none with Palin.

“As far as her direct staffers, I have not heard from them,” he said.

Branstad cautioned people should expect the unexpected when it comes to Palin, recalling the surprise endorsement she gave him in last year’s gubernatorial primary against a social conservative.

“She endorsed me on Facebook so you never know what she’s going to do. She does kind of the unusual,” he said. “She might announce on Facebook – who knows.”

Jonathan Martin and Jake Sherman contributed to this report.