Bachmann has avoided making specific comparisons between Palin and herself.
"I think we're both unique individuals and I'm grateful for her gifts and talents and how she's using those in our country," Bachmann said in an interview with FoxNews.com. "She's trying to be influential in her realm and I am as well in my realm.
"I don't try to fill her shoes," she said.
Still, the comparisons -- physical, spiritual, intellectual or otherwise -- are sometimes uncanny.
Palin has portrayed herself as a non-career politician, a "hockey-mom" whose "common sense conservative" principles make her well-suited to lead the country.
Bachmann's self-characterization closely mirrors Palin's.
"I am the chief coupon-clipper at our house," she told a cheering crowd of 200 conservative activists outside the Minnesota state capitol. "Whoever balances the checkbook knows we gotta bring in at least a little bit more than what you put out."
Bachmann went on to say that she and her husband, parents of five biological children (the same number as the Palins) as well as 23 foster children, "always bought used cars" and "clothes in consignment stores."
"We've lived like all of you live because we balance the checkbook," she boomed.Palin, a Fox News contributor, addressed the comparisons between her and Bachmann on Wednesday.
"Michele and I both, we have strong faith that we, fighting as hard as we can for our country and supporting those who share our values, share our principles and, at the same time, putting our lives in God's hands and asking him for direction," she said.
Some observers say the two women, who appeared together on stage accompanied by Martina McBride's "This One's for the Girls," are so alike they could be confused for one another. In a side-by-side photo lineup, seven out of a random sampling of 20 Tea Party-goers at one Minnesota rally had trouble telling who was who.
"They could be sisters," said one Tea Party member clad in a "Palin for President" t-shirt at a rally in Duluth, Minn., on Thursday.
"They're both Christian, conservative, attractive, intelligent and feisty," said Jim Erlemeier of Duluth.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/08/honey-tea-partiers-bask-glow-conservative-women-palin-bachmann/