Pawlenty announces 2012 White House bid (AFP)

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty announced his 2012 bid to challenge President Barack Obama for the White House in a slick online video ahead of his first official campaign event in Iowa Monday.

"The truth is, our country's in big trouble. We have far too much debt. Too much government spending and too few jobs," Pawlenty says in the two-minute long video released late Sunday.

"We need a president who understands that our problems are deep, and who has the courage to face them," he says. "President Obama doesn't. I do."

"I'm Tim Pawlenty, and I'm running for president of the United States," the former governor says ahead of his official announcement at a town hall meeting later Monday in Iowa, the first in the United States presidential caucus state.

Pawlenty is to be introduced at his formal campaign kickoff at the State of Iowa Historical Building by his wife Mary, a former state judge.

The former governor enters a thinning field of prospective contenders which lacks a clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination after three high-profile candidates -- former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, real estate mogul Donald Trump, and Indiana governor Mitch Daniels -- dropped out in little more than a week.

Pawlenty made his intentions to run clear weeks ago, in March releasing a polished YouTube video announcing the formation of an exploratory committee.

And for more than a year he has been traveling to key early presidential nomination states like Iowa and New Hampshire.

Following his first official campaign event, Pawlenty plans to participate in a Facebook town hall meeting on Tuesday in Florida, which is angling to be among the first crop of nominating states.

He was due to speak in Washington Wednesday at the libertarian Cato Institute.

An evangelical Christian, Pawlenty was born to a Polish American and his German American mother in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He was trained as a labor lawyer before being elected governor. He and his wife have two daughters.

The low-key Pawlenty -- derided by detractors as bland and uncharismatic -- is little known outside of his home state. He hopes to position himself as a fiscal conservative who will shake up Washington.

All told, the Republican field encompasses about a dozen hopefuls who have declared their intentions or are preparing to, among them Minnesota representative Michele Bachmann; former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum; Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels; former ambassador to China Jon Huntsman; and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich was the first major Republican candidate to formally throw his hat into the ring earlier this month, less than two weeks ahead of Pawlenty.

Also recently announcing a long-shot White House bid was US lawmaker Ron Paul, a libertarian with a small but spirited Republican following.

There has been talk of a possible late election season entry into the White House contest, because the Republican electorate is said to be disenchanted with the field of contenders so far.

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'Tea-Paw' Pawlenty Courts Tea Partyers in 2012 Bid

AP

Feb. 11: Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington.

Republican Tim Pawlenty, "T-Paw" to his supporters, has increasingly tied himself to the new crop of grass-roots activists in the 2012 presidential campaign.

So maybe it's time to call the former Minnesota governor "Tea-Paw."

He says his aggressive outreach to Tea Party audiences is one important part of a strategy to assemble the diverse network of backers he needs to go national and win the GOP nomination. He's not focusing solely on this emerging force in party politics, he says, perhaps mindful not to alienate other Republican groups.

"I'm not trying to introduce myself to the Tea Party. I'm trying to introduce myself to the whole party ... because I'm not known outside of Minnesota," Pawlenty told The Associated Press in a telephone interview ahead of a Saturday appearance at a Tea Party rally at the Iowa Statehouse. He spoke at a similar rally in Boston on Friday and to the movement's national summit in Phoenix in February.

A little-known Midwesterner trying to break out of a crowded GOP field, Pawlenty has said he needs to "win or do very well" in Iowa's lead-off caucuses by attracting social conservatives and pro-business conservatives as well as newly motivated Tea Party followers. They make up a chunk of the state's electorate: A Des Moines Register's Iowa Poll showed last fall that 39 percent of Iowa voters said they supported the movement.

But Pawlenty faces stiff competition for the allegiance of Iowa's Tea Partyers from Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and others.

"There may be some folks who are running as candidates who are more deeply engrained, or were engrained earlier, in the Tea Party movement," Pawlenty said in the interview. "As Tea Party members think about who they want not only to represent the conservative coalition but to win the election, I think we're going to be the candidate the presents the total package."

It's a message he delivers in private meetings with small groups of influential Tea Party supporters, as he did in Altoona two weeks ago.

While Pawlenty has made overtures to Tea Party supporters, his campaign strategists and Iowa advisers are establishment Republican operatives. Conversely, Bachmann has lined up commitments from some of the Iowa's most influential Tea Party leaders. If she does enter the race, she's expected to pick state Sen. Kent Sorenson, a rising star among the Tea Party activists, as her chief adviser in the state.

Pawlenty might seem an odd fit as the choice of a movement that sprung up a decade after he rose to GOP leadership in Democratic-leaning Minnesota. He was not invited to his home state's first Tea Party rally at the state Capitol in St. Paul two years ago, and was a warm-up act last year behind Bachmann and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, also a Tea Party favorite.

But some Iowa Tea Partyers say Pawlenty's fiscal record in Minnesota earns him credibility. He was governor during a time of recurring deficits and battles with Democrats over his refusal to consider tax increases. Pawlenty had some success in stemming the growth of programs, but he also he resorted to temporary fixes and enacted new fees that some anti-tax activists considered tax increases.

"I think that the Tea Party is all about spending," said Brett Rogers, a West Des Moines Republican and co-founder of the Iowa Tea Party who is undecided about which contender to support heading into 2012. "And Gov. Pawlenty has a great message on that."

Others see Pawlenty as a latecomer and are leaning toward White House prospects with longer ties to the movement but narrower overall appeal, such as Bachmann.

"I don't see him as Tea Party. I didn't feel like he stood for what I stood for," said Jim Carley of Altoona.

Carley said he was dissatisfied with Pawlenty's answer during a recent meeting with Tea Party leaders to a question about how to repeal President Barack Obama's health care law. According to Carley, Pawlenty said Obama and Congress could refuse to pay for it. Carley wanted more.

"I'm not talking about defunding it. I'm talking about getting rid of it," Carley said.

He's says he's not inclined to support Pawlenty.

Carley likes Bachmann, who has introduced a bill to repeal the health law, and former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain, also set to speak Saturday in Des Moines.

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