Bachmann Beat: Taking On Abortion, Education Department

Michele Bachmann took on her fellow GOP presidential hopefuls during a Labor Day forum in South Carolina.

There, the 6th District representative and fellow GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney outlined their diverging views on abortion rights, the Huffington Post reports.

Romney said that, if elected, he would not push for the Supreme Court to make abortion illegal. Bachmann said she would, according to the report, and “most assuredly” would be prepared for a showdown with the nation’s top judicial body.

"If the Supreme Court, by a plurality of the justices, may impose their own personal morality on the rest of the nation, then we are quite literally being ruled by those individuals as opposed to giving our consent to the people's representatives," Bachmann said.

Another noteworthy portion of the forum came when Bachmann suggested eliminating the national Department of Education (includes video), according to a CNN blog. 

"Because the Constitution does not specifically enumerate nor does it give to the federal government the role and duty to superintend over education that historically has been held by the parents and by local communities and by state governments," she said.

During the forum, Bachmann again criticized President Obama’s health care overhaul and said his hiring of high-level advisers without proper vetting by Congress is one of several instances in which the president has acted “outside of the bounds of the Constitution," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

MSNBC takes a broader look at the debate and includes a transcript, as well.

Meanwhile, there’s been another shakeup of Bachmann’s campaign staff. Campaign manager Ed Rollins is being assigned a lesser role and deputy campaign manager David Polyansky is leaving Bachmann camp, according to the Washington Post.

The Washington Post piece says the moves raise questions whether the campaign has been stuck in neutral since winning the Iowa straw poll three weeks ago.

Closer to home, Anoka High School plans to induct its first Hall of Fame class—and Bachmann was not among the 24 nominated, according to the Star Tribune. (Garrison Keillor also did not make the cut.)

"I would guess that a lot of people thought she was automatic and someone else nominated her. Nobody did," committee member Mike Clark said of Bachmann, a former cheerleader and 1974 graduate.