Michele Bachmann enters 2012 presidential race; Tea Party favorite joins crowded GOP field

Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann made it official Monday and became the latest Republican to launch a bid for the White House.

Calling herself a "bold choice," the Minnesota congresswoman launched her campaign in Waterloo, Iowa, where she was bo 55 years ago.

In typical fashion, Bachmann blasted President Obama for his "failed leadership."

"We can't afford four more years of Barack Obama," she said. "We cannot continue to kick the can of our problems down the road, because they are problems of today and not tomorrow. We cannot continue to rack up debt on the backs of future generations."

Bachmann also took aim at Obama's historic health care reform, which she called an "unconstitutional health plan that costs too much and is worth too little."

Bachmann did not say how she would solve the economic problems or wind down the wars that Obama inherited from the Bush Administration.

Instead, Bachmann lambasted liberals and made a point of insisting that the Tea Party is not the "right wing of the Republican Party."

"We're people who simply want America back on the right track again," she said.

Bachmann also took a trip down memory lane, describing how her divorced mom raised her and her siblings with the help of neighbors and "not our govement."

She said she grew up a Democrat but switched sides after getting disenchanted with President Carter's policies.

While the gaffe-prone Bachmann has had to deal with the perception that she is, as FOX News's Chris Wallace put it, something of a "flake," she is a contender in Iowa.

Bachmann's conservative politics and opposition to abortion, gay marriage and the minimum wage resonate with the GOP base in Iowa, first state in the nation to hold its caucus.

The influential Des Moines Register poll has Bachmann essentially tied with supposed the GOP front-runner, former Massachusetts goveor Mitt Romney.