GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann on Friday predicted California would side with Republicans in 2012, a distinct improbability given voting registration trends and recent history in the Golden State.

“I’m here to announce to you tonight, we will take our country back in 2012 and together we will make Barack Obama a one-term president,” Bachmann told about 400 people at a dinner at the California Republican Party convention.

“President Obama’s numbers are the lowest they have ever been and I’m just here to say they haven’t hit rock bottom yet. I think Election Day in 2012 will probably be the lowest they are yet, that’s why I know … that we have got a message and we have got a winning streak,” she said. “I firmly believe 2012 will be a blowout election…. I believe 2012 will be a wave election that goes all the way across the United States, it will even take in the Golden State, I am so excited.”

Bachmann’s comments notwithstanding, a recent USC/Los Angeles Times poll showed Obama with expansive leads over the major Republican candidates, including Bachmann. The last Republican nominee to win the state in a general election was George H.W. Bush, who eked out a narrow victory over Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988.


Bachmann made the remarks on the opening night of the party convention in Los Angeles. Before she took the stage, a flash mob of about 60 gay rights supporters protested her appearance on a plaza outside the JW Marriott downtown. After one man yelled: “Michele Bachmann, you can’t pray the gay away,” they danced to Madonna’s “Like A Prayer.”

Inside the convention, audience members were tepid in the initial moments of her 40-minute speech, but grew increasingly warm, leaping to their feet when she said she would not set foot on foreign soil and apologize for America — a familiar Republican complaint about President Obama.

The speech was part of a two-day swing through California, in which Bachmann raised money, held a rally in Costa Mesa and appeared on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” Earlier in the day, Bachmann aimed her fire at Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whose entrance into the presidential contest in August has eclipsed Bachmann’s campaign. But on Friday evening, she delivered an introductory speech, discussing her upbringing, her husband, her five biological children and 23 foster children, and her faith. She ignored her GOP rivals, focusing solely on President Obama, slamming his handling of the economy, foreign relations and healthcare and saying he has abused his executive power.

“You need to look no further than the signature issue of his presidency, which is Obamacare. For the first time in our nation’s history, the federal government has said to all of us, you will buy a product or service because the government told you so as a condition of our citizenship of the United States,” Bachmann said. “Have you ever heard of anything more malicious? … I promise as president of the United States, I will not rest until we repeal Obamacare.”


seema.mehta@latimes.com