Donovan Slack

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – Call it Bachmann 2.0.

Rep. Michele Bachmann says she is considering a run for president in 2016.

The Minnesota Republican told Real Clear Politics on Tuesday that she learned a great deal from her failed bid in 2012 and will "certainly" draw upon those lessons if she runs again.

"Like with anything else, practice makes perfect," she said. "And I think if a person has gone through the process -- for instance, I had gone through 15 presidential debates -- it's easy to see a person's improvement going through that."

She also suggested her fundraising talents could prove to be an asset. Bachmann has been a Tea Party favorite and virtual fundraising juggernaut, drawing millions in individual contributions from across the country. She told Real Clear Politics that she is "one of the top -- if not the top -- fundraisers in the history of the United States Congress."

"And it's because people saw that I had an authentic voice, and I was fighting for them," she said. "I wasn't speaking to them like a politician. I was speaking like a real person who was fighting for what they believed in."

Bachmann, who is retiring from the House at the end of the year, said she won't make a final decision until then.

"I think it's important to have sufficient time to lay the necessary groundwork to have a really solid campaign and a campaign team put together," she said. "And I think probably I would think about that decision earlier than I did last time."

Bachmann, who could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday, did not officially enter the 2012 race until fairly late -- June 2011. But her bid for the Republican nomination gained steam after she won the Ames straw poll in Iowa two months later. It sputtered out several months later when she finished sixth in the Iowa caucuses.

Her campaign was marred by several high-profile gaffes, such as when she said "the shot heard round the world" at the start of the Revolutionary War happened in New Hampshire (that was Massachusetts) and asserted that John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa, (he was from Winterset; serial killer John Wayne Gacy lived in Waterloo).

Her potential entrance into the 2016 presidential race was welcomed by Democrats, who have repeatedly cited her as the type of candidate who shows the GOP is out of touch.

"Given her record as an anti-immigration reform, anti-marriage equality, pro-shutdown and pro-ending Medicare as we know it Republican, Bachmann will have a hard time differentiating herself from the rest of the nascent GOP field," Democratic National Committee spokesman Michael Czin said. "In other words, we welcome her to the primary."

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee declined to weigh in, citing a policy of not commenting on candidates.