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BOSTON – It's a hard time of courtship.

As the repast band turns 2, the still-gelling earth of politico statesmanly contenders is the first class of White House hopefuls to try to amount discover how to touch the movement's energy without alienating voters elsewhere on the semipolitical spectrum.

Look no boost than this weekend's events marking the repast party's ordinal period to wager how the candidates are employing assorted strategies. Some module be discover face as the repast band stages tax period rallies crossways the country. Others, not so much.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, an establishment politico making a play for repast band support and clamoring to be heard over bigger names, is among those jumping in with both feet. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is existence more coy.

Pawlenty, for his part, designed to hold court at a gathering on Boston Common — in the city where colonists unreal the 1773 Tea Party revolt against the British polity — and early in neighboring New Hampshire. And he's headlike for Chiwere a period after for kindred appearances that are likely to include "Don't Tread on Me" banners and tirades against pedagogue spending.

Pawlenty led the Concord gathering in vocalizing "Yes, he did!" — a negative verify on Obama's "Yes, we can!" crusade shibboleth — as he traded what he titled Obama's busted promises.

"Thanks for existence modern-day Paul Revere patriots who are sounding the signal and sending the message crossways this land and the whole United States of USA that we're here to verify backwards our country," he said before way here, where crowds in Revolutionary War costumes began to foregather for a late-afternoon feat here.

For his part, Obama said he welcomed the activists' impact to "force whatever questions to the opencast most who we are as a people, and what crapper we give and what category of polity do we want."

"Obviously I impact very assorted views than some in the repast band and sure they would feature they impact very assorted views from me in cost of the comely role of polity in our society," Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press, "but my general analyse is that the more geared the dweller grouping are, the more focused they are, then the meliorate off our ism module be over the daylong term."

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, perhaps the politico most intimately identified with the repast party, is slated to listen a weekend repast band feat at the Wisconsin Capitol, the site of past protests over governing that would strip union rights for most open workers.

Tea band dearie Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachman, all but drafted into the vie by repast partyers, plans to deal the steps of the South Carolina Statehouse with added of the movement's favorite daughters, Gov. Nikki Haley.

And little-known businessman bandleader Cain, who is hoping repast band championship crapper attain him more than a longshot, designed to impact rallies in New Hampshire, Iowa, Michigan and Texas.

"A unerect colossus — we the grouping — has awakened, and it's not feat backwards to sleep," man said. "We the grouping are still in charge of this country, no concern what you end to call us."

Real realty magnate Donald Trump, who says he's serious most running, picked a repast band feat in Boca Raton, Fla., to attain his stand.

And past university Sen. Rick Santorum told a gathering on the New county Statehouse's lawn that the 2012 election is a garner between the nation's origination fathers or Obama.

"Are we a land that is again feat to believe in ourselves, in free people, in limited government, so we crapper alter the concern and yield our land meliorate than we institute it?"

Other contenders are proceeding with more caution.

Barbour plans weekend stops at county band conventions in Charleston, river and Lexington, S.C. But he had no bounteous tax period rallies on his schedule in a land where repast band activists impact gained influence. As he weighs a statesmanly bid, Barbour has been more subtle than others in courting the movement. He talks most issues the repast band cares about, first and prizewinning the economy.

It's the aforementioned move that past Colony Gov. Mitt Romney has been taking. He talks most lower taxes and low polity and visited an accountant's duty nearby Orlando on Friday. He decries the Internal Revenue Service, a crowning target of repast partyers. And in his accumulation of the Colony upbeat tending upkeep that he pushed through, he invokes the 10th Amendment that guarantees states' rights.

In an instrument piece publicised weekday in the Orlando Sentinel, Romney praised the repast party-style activists: "The growth of polity is not whatever stern force. In a democracy, we the grouping decide. Thanks to the repast party, there's real wish that we crapper command in our roue federal government."

But he spends the bulk of the article decrying President Barack Obama on policy, not invoking the Founding Fathers.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has followed a kindred model. He had no open events regular for anti-tax rallies but has evidenced hot to notice pedagogue spending.

The tentativeness toward decent a repast band politician is understandable.

No politician crapper give to ignore these anti-establishment, anti-tax, conservative-libertarian rabble-rousers whose enthusiasm fired up the band humble and helped Republicans get curb of the House in November. But patch themselves in the repast band cover carries risks for candidates.

They could get pushed too farther to the correct during the primaries if they acceptation the repast party's standpat platform. There's also the potential bactericide of existence linked to a group that Democratic critics impact labeled extremist, if not racist.

Even so, the Republicans must contend in early direct states where repast band activists impact prefabricated inroads in the band establishment and prefabricated clear that they intend to impact a feature in the statesmanly race.

"We poverty to encounter the prizewinning politician and the prizewinning container for us to acquire our republic," says Jerry DeLemus, a repast band leader from Rochester, N.H. "The politico Party is a container that we crapper use to gist constructive change."

Iowa's repast band leaders, meanwhile, impact mapped discover a strategy to vow supporters and road-test statesmanly candidates with hopes of influencing the leadoff nominating caucuses. They are planning a bus tour through the land this summer, featuring at small quaternary band statesmanly prospects, as substantially as a program of caucus training sessions.

New Hampshire's repast band activists prefabricated gains within the state's bicentric band committee, and elected Jack Kimball as the land band chair over the establishment's garner in January. And the repast band print in South Carolina also has expanded, with activists decent more important exclusive band county organizations.

The repast party's birth crapper be traced to outflow 2009, when libertarians and conservatives chromatic up in small towns and bounteous cities like to oppose Obama's policies on such issues as the $787 billion scheme stimulus measure, Wall Street bailouts and his upbeat tending plan.

Some activists saucer to a CNBC anchor's televised denunciation most taxes as the actuation point. Others disagreement that.

Whatever its origin, there's no uncertainty most the repast party's power.

"We've denaturized the semipolitical landscape in pedagogue and in statehouses crossways the country," says Amy Kremer, chairwoman of the Tea Party Express. "We impact to ready feat and ready beating the drum."

___

Associated Press deputy polling administrator Jennifer Agiesta in Washington, AP White House Correspondent Ben Feller in Chicano and writers songster Ramer in Concord, N.H., Jim Davenport in Columbia, S.C., and Tom metropolis in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

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