For perhaps the first time since June, Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann made herself a significant presence in a presidential debate Saturday night in Iowa, drawing blood from front runners Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich for their past support for individual mandates in health care. She repeatedly called the pair "Newt-Romney," suggesting that they aren't true conservatives. "If you want a real difference, Michele Bachmann is a proven conservative," Bachmann said in an exchange that sometimes had the two front-runners eyeing each other sideways. "He and I are not clones," Romney replied, to laughter. Challenging Romney's record in Massachusetts, Bachmann called him the only governor who had put an individual mandate into law. As for Gingrich, the former House Speaker, she noted that he had been an early advocate of the individual mandate going back to 1993. Bachmann termed it a "very heavy lift" that either Romney or Gingrich might successfully repeal the Obama health care law that is built on the individual mandate. Deflecting Bachmann's broadside, Gingrich protested, "Michele, a lot of what you say isn't true." That seemed to be an indication that he no longer supports the individual mandate, not that he never did. Chimed in Rick Santorum, trailing in the back of the pack with Bachmann, "Michele kind of hit the nail on the head." Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Bachmann's campaign sent out a press release targeting Gingrich, the surging front runner in Iowa, which is critical to her hopes of winning the GOP nomination: "K-Street Gingrich," it said. "Washington Insider, Crony Capitalist, Unreliable Conservative."