You’re No Thatcher !!! Bachmann: 'I Want to Be America's Margaret Thatcher'

She confidently predicts her performance in Iowa caucuses will “shock” the current polls there.

Most Republican presidential candidates are quick to compare themselves to Ronald Reagan. But Rep. Michele Bachmann has another conservative from the 1980s she seeks to emulate -– former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

“I want to be America's Margaret Thatcher,” Bachmann told National Journal/CBS News in an interview. “I want to be America's Iron Lady.”

Bachmann, who is seeking to regain the momentum she enjoyed in Iowa during the summer, also had harsh words for fellow candidates Newt Gingrich, Rep. Ron Paul and Mitt Romney.

She dubbed Gingrich “the grandfather of the individual mandate” for the former House speaker’s alleged onetime support of Massachusetts’ health care reform policy. She blasted Romney “for signing over 100 same-sex marriage licenses” when he was the Bay State’s governor –- an accusation that is not technically true, since Romney’s administration issued one-day declarations to both gay and straight couples allowing “non-clergy individuals to solemnize a marriage.”

And she predicted that voters will turn away from Paul as they learn more about racist statements included in old newsletters bearing his name.

Polls currently show the Minnesota congresswoman running a distant fifth in Iowa behind those three and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. But she asserted: “I think the polls will be shocked on the evening of January 3rd and January 4th.”