AP: Tea party bulling its way into 2012 GOP race

AP: Tea party bulling its way into 2012 GOP race:

Bulling its way into 2012, the tea party is shaping the race for the GOP presidential nomination as candidates parrot the movement's language and promote its agenda while jostling to win its favor.

That's much to the delight of Democrats who are working to paint the tea party and the eventual Republican nominee as extreme.

"The tea party isn't a diversion from mainstream Republican thought. It is within mainstream Republican thought," Mitt Romney told a New Hampshire newspaper recently, defending the activists he's done little to woo, until now.

The former Massachusetts governor is starting to court them more aggressively as polls suggest he's being hurt by weak support within the movement, whose members generally favor rivals such as Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann.

Romney's shift is the latest evidence of the big imprint the tea party is leaving on the race.

Such overtures come with risks, given that more Americans are cooling to the tea party's unyielding tactics and bare-bones vision of the federal government.

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...