GOP candidates court tea party base

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Pledging fidelity to the Constitution and vowing to carry the tea party's priorities to the White House, the Republicans chasing the GOP's presidential nomination pitched themselves yesterday to their party's libertarian activists as the strongest candidates to back four years of President Barack Obama's tenure.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said the administration flouted the Constitution to push a political agenda. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota stridently called Obama's policies "unconstitutional" at the same tea party-backed forum. And Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the third member of his party's top tier, told a separate town hall-style audience earlier in the day that he has a better record on jobs than the president.

The contenders were preening themselves for the tea party during an afternoon forum with Sen. Jim DeMint in his home state, site of the first nominating contest in the South. The event was designed to probe the candidates on spending, taxes and the Constitution -- bedrock principles for the tea party activists whose rising clout is likely to shape the nominating process.

"I don't think I've ever seen an administration who has gone further afield from the Constitution . . . than the Obama administration, not just with regulation, but with energy policy, with financial regulatory policy and, with the worst example, Obamacare," Romney said.

Said Perry: "The track record we have creating jobs, I'd put up against anyone running for president of the United States, particularly the current resident of the White House."

And Bachmann warned that Obama and Democrats' health care legislation was taking away freedoms and giving Washington abject power.

"They will become a dictator over our lives," she said of federal requirements included in the overhaul that requires Americans to have health insurance.

"This is the foundation for socialized medicine. Make no mistake about it. It will change the face of this nation forever," she warned.