Bachmann tries to fire up tea party supporters

Updated 6:10 p.m. ET

Looking to rally her tea party base, Michele Bachmann ramped up her rhetoric Tuesday evening with a series of comments slamming the Occupy Wall Street movement and government benefits for the children of illegal immigrants.

As polls show Bachmann falling further behind in the race for the Republican nomination, she took part in a telephone discussion sponsored by theteaparty.net and aimed at the tea party voters who once made up the core of her political base .

Bachmann said she has learned of "evidence that Occupy Wall Street is being backed up by the former leaders of ACORN." She was referring to the liberal leaning advocacy group that was shut down in 2009 following a sting operation by conservative activist James O'Keefe, which caught employees offering advice to clients on hiding prostitution and avoiding taxes. Former ACORN officials have denied that they are financially backing OWS.

"When you have bad guys like ACORN backing up Occupy Wall Street really, it's a problem on so many levels," Bachmann said.

When asked how she would handle illegal immigration, Bachmann used the opportunity to announce her support for legislation that would not allow a baby born in the United States to an illegal immigrant, sometimes called an anchor baby, to receive welfare benefits from the federal government. She told the callers in the telephone town hall that she is the only candidate to take that position.

Bachmann calling President Obama a "dead-beat president" for his recent use of an executive order to change the terms of the college student loan program. She promised to shut down several federal departments and "dismantle the Great Society" launched by President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s. And she hinted that she might consider opening an investigation of Obama.

"I think there's a lot of investigation that has to go on," she told a caller from Arizona when he asked if she would investigate the president.

When asked by conservative radio host Rusty Humphries what she would say to tea party members who don't want the 2012 campaign to focus on social issues, Bachmann responded, "Culture is everything in a society," and said that ultimately the issue is about First Amendment rights.

"We all have freedom of conscience to worship God in any way we want, and also to be able to talk about God in the public square and the public schools, for instance," she said, adding, "We're seeing their voices silenced in public square. That's wrong."

She ended the call with these comments: "Of all of the candidates that are there, I am the true tea party candidate who's been tried and tested."