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Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty plunged into the contest for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination Monday with a Facebook announcement in which he championed limited government and declared, “We the people of the United States will take back our government.”

Pawlenty, 50, stopped a step short of a formal declaration, which is likely to come later in the spring. But his decision to establish a presidential exploratory committee with the Federal Election Commission gives him the legal mechanisms to begin active fundraising and to build his campaign operation.

The long-anticipated announcement by Pawlenty signaled the acceleration of what has been a slow-starting race for the GOP nomination, with other prospective candidates expected to announce their intentions in the coming weeks.

Those likely candidates include former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, seen as a fragile frontrunner in the GOP sweepstakes; Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who has been locking up talent and traveling to key states; and former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who has done everything to show he plans to run except form a presidential committee.

Considerable uncertainty surrounds the Republican race, considered to be as wide open as any in recent years. Among those still waiting to be heard from are former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008; former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin; Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels; and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.

Pawlenty’s announcement came in a two-minute video replete with flags waving and a rich soundtrack. He spoke of his roots in a blue-collar suburb of the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul to try to show that he understands the pain many families are still feeling as the economy slowly recovers from the collapse that began in late 2008.

His message was also aimed at tea party conservatives, one of the most energetic segments of the Republican Party. “This country was founded on freedom,” he said. “We the people of the United States will take back our government. This is our country. Our founding fathers created it. Americans embraced it. Ronald Reagan personified it, and Lincoln stood courageously to protect it. Together we’ll restore America.”

Pawlenty is little known nationally and registers in single digits in national polls testing the field of possible candidates. According to the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, nearly six in 10 Republicans said they didn’t know enough about him to offer an opinion.

But the former governor carries less obvious baggage than some of his better-known opponents. Aides said Monday that he will seek to portray himself as a bridge betweenthe fiscal and social conservatives within the party. And, aides said, Pawlenty has shown that his ability to appeal to independents would make him the strongest potential candidate against President Obama in the general election.

Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist who is neutral in the GOP nomination battle, said Pawlenty’s attributes include an optimistic message that contrasts with the note of austerity coming from some congressional Republicans. “He has tapped a chord that is missing for Republicans in general,” Castellanos said.

But he added that it’s unclear whether Pawlenty can generate enough enthusiasm to win the nomination. “A lot of Republicans are concerned that he’s wet wood and won’t light. Is he as charismatic as his message?” Castellanos said.

Aides said Pawlenty intends to highlight his conservative record in a state best known for liberal politics. That record, they said, includes cutting state spending and taxes, vetoing tax hike measures, taking on public employee unions and instituting pension reforms for some public employees and health-care initiatives that contrast with Obama’s health-care law.

A spokeswoman for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor-Party immediately attacked Pawlenty after the announcement. In a statement, Kristin Sosanie accused Pawlenty of leaving behind the largest deficit in the state’s history, higher property taxes and “draconian” cuts in education. “The last thing he deserves is a chance to do it to our nation,” she said.

Pawlenty will begin his campaign strategy by turning to neighboring Iowa. A victory in those caucuses early next year could be a springboard to boost his profile. And it could provide the momentum to compete effectively in New Hampshire, where Romney is the clear favorite, and elsewhere. A poor finish in Iowa, however, could cripple his candidacy.

Pawlenty aides said that in using Facebook to make the announcement, the former governor showed that he’ll make the maximum possible use of new technology and social networking in his campaign.

Four years ago, a number of candidates announced their intentions to run for office by posting videos on their campaign committee Web sites. Obama’s campaign went on to exploit technology more effectively than anyone had done previously. Pawlenty’s use of Facebook shows the rapidly evolving role of social networking in all facets of politics and likely will become standard in all 2012 campaigns.

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Pool photo by Leslie E. Kossoff President Obama gave a speech on reforming education at Kenmore Middle School, in Arlington, Va.

As they prepare to wage political war against President Obama, the potential 2012 Republican candidates are doing everything they can to draw sharp distinctions with him.

But Mr. Obama isn’t cooperating.

Rather than emphasize his differences with potential Oval Office rivals or Republican adversaries on Capitol Hill, the president is taking every opportunity he can to embrace members of the other party as co-conspirators in his efforts to confront the country’s challenges.

According to Mr. Obama, the two parties have cooperated — or are showing signs of being willing to work together — on education reform, tax cuts, energy security, economic growth and potential changes to an entitlement system that has become a drain on the nation’s budget.

“I am proud of the commitment by Democrats and Republicans in Congress to fix No Child Left Behind,” Mr. Obama said Monday at a Virginia middle school.

Two weeks ago, at a fund-raiser in Miami, he noted that “I’m proud that Democrats and Republicans joined forces in December to cut taxes for every American.”

And at a meeting of the National Governor’s Association, he spoke optimistically about confronting the rising costs of Medicare and Medicaid, saying that “I think that’s something that Democrats and Republicans should be able to agree on.”

He’s also heaped special praise — tinged with just a bit of sarcasm — on Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts (for his health care plan) and Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah, for serving as Mr. Obama’s ambassador to China. Both men are considering a bid for president in 2012.

The logic behind Mr. Obama’s approach appears to be rooted in the belief that voters — and especially independents — are looking for evidence that politicians in Washington are working together on problems rather than content to live with an unending stalemate.

In a cabinet meeting the day after the midterm elections in November, Mr. Obama said that that was the message he had received from the drubbing his party took. Voters, he said, are “concerned about making sure that taxpayer money is not wasted, and they want to change the tone here in Washington, where the two parties are coming together and focusing on the people’s business as opposed to scoring political points.”

The change in the president’s rhetoric since then has been striking.

In the weeks before the election, Mr. Obama hardly missed an opportunity to suggest that it was Republicans who had driven the American economy into a ditch. “Have you noticed when you want to go forward, what do you do with your car?” he would repeatedly ask. “You put it in D. When you want to go backwards, what do you do? You put it in R. That’s not a coincidence.”

Except for one fund-raiser on Nov. 5, Mr. Obama has not said the word “ditch” in public since then.

In addition to appealing to some voters, the bipartisan rhetoric from Mr. Obama may be an attempt to disarm his potential 2012 rivals and Republicans on Capitol Hill. In Miami this month, Mr. Obama stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, to promote education reforms.

“it’s time we came together — just like Jeb and I are doing today — coming from different parties but we come together not as Democrats or Republicans, as Americans, to lift up all of our schools,” he said.

Not everything is sweetness and light, of course. Mr. Obama and the Capitol Hill Republicans remain at loggerheads over the current year’s budget. And there’s no clear indication of how the two sides are going to reach agreement on raising the nation’s debt ceiling later this year.

The president will also need to shift into a more adversarial mode as the election grows closer. Even as his campaign preached hope and optimism in 2008, Mr. Obama’s victory against Senator John McCain of Arizona was built on drawing a clear contrast between the two men.

It may be that Mr. Obama can put off that kind of sharp-edged campaign rhetoric for several months. It seems unlikely he will have a serious primary challenger, and that will allow him to appear somewhat above the fray while the Republicans battle among themselves.

But already, his campaign operatives are beginning to travel the country, hat-in-hand, looking for donations from wealthy supporters. And his finance operation will soon be asking for donations from the millions of less-wealthy supporters who contributed a few dollars in 2008.

Both groups will be looking for contrasts, not just mushy expressions of cooperation.

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Politics abhors a vacuum, and so without any announced presidential candidates, candidates are beginning to jump into the Republican primary.

Hotline reported on Wednesday that Buddy Roemer, the former Louisiana governor who started out as a Democrat but is now a Republican, will announce the formation of an exploratory committee on Thursday.

Mr. Roemer was a Democratic member of Congress in the 1980s and was elected governor of Louisiana in 1987 as a Democrat. He switched parties in 1991.

As Hotline noted, Mr. Roemer is scheduled to appear in Iowa on Monday at a forum for social conservative activists. Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota; Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania; and Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, are also expected to attend.

Earlier this year, Mr. Roemer told The News-Star of Monroe, La., that he was “getting ready to make my case with the American people.”

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Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, is out hawking his new book, “Twelve Things We Really Need from Washington (and a Trillion That We Don’t!).” As a former presidential candidate whose book tour includes an eyebrow-raising number of stops in early nominating states — six in Iowa and five in South Carolina — he had a thing or two to say about the current state of politics.

Even though Mr. Huckabee has said that President Obama will be a formidable opponent for any Republican nominee, in a 10-minute interview at the National Press Club on Thursday, he was quick to add that his own decision about seeking the party’s nomination was not going to be based on Mr. Obama’s political standing.

“No, because I don’t know if you could get any weaker than he is now,” Mr. Huckabee said. “I really don’t. I mean, every day he does something that just astonishes me in his political naiveté.”

Mr. Huckabee pointed to the administration’s decision on Wednesday that it will no longer defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law banning the recognition of same-sex marriage.

“The decision yesterday that he’s not going to defend DOMA was not only from an issue standpoint utterly inexplicable, but from a legal standpoint,” he said. “If he seriously thinks that because a lower court has ruled one section of DOMA to be unconstitutional — a lower court not processed all the way to the Supreme [Court]— then by that logic he needs to abandon Obamacare today.”

He also gave a quick — and wholly positive — analysis of some of the Republicans he might face should he enter the 2012 fray.

On Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi: “Great political mind, the best in the country.”

On Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential nominee and former governor of Alaska: “An incredibly energizing force within the conservative movement.”

On Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota: “Good friend, good guy, like him a lot.”

And on Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts: “You know, a very smart, seasoned politician.”

In his book, Mr. Huckabee offers slightly harsher words about Mr. Romney, particularly his “failed” health care plan when he was governor, which Mr. Huckabee describes as “the health care ‘experiment’ known as RomneyCare.”

His book, he said, was the best way for him to “get the message as directly to the people as possible, without the filter of, no offense, the media telling people what you said.”

“One of the reasons to write a book is, this is what I say,” Mr. Huckabee continued. “This isn’t what someone said I said. I can put it to them in first hand. So if they read this book, they know what I actually believe. They know what I said. They don’t get something interpreted for them by somebody who may not have heard properly.”

Mr. Huckabee said the book itself, which, true to its title, sets forth 12 things he believes the nation needs from its government, is his platform.

“Let me let you see what I stand for, now you read this and tell me: Do you think these ideas are good for America or not?” he said. “If you do, then that’s going to help me make that decision. If you read the book and think, ‘No, don’t think that’s going to work,’ then I need to know that now. And you need to know that now. So it’s sort of an honest attempt to have an understanding on the front end of the process, rather than the big surprise we normally have on the back, where we didn’t know what the guy really stood for.”

Mr. Huckabee has been using his time on the road to meet with potential Republican donors and fundraisers, though he coyly declined to give specifics.
“I would consider that sort of confidential inside-baseball stuff I don’t want in the New York Times,” he said with a smile.

So, has he had more book events than donor meetings?

“I won’t even go that far,” he said. “I’ll just say it’s part of what I’m doing is to assess.”

And so far, the mood seems very different than when he ran for president in 2008.

“It’s interesting to me that more people are coming to me than I’m actually going to, which is encouraging,” Mr. Huckabee said. “That’s something that did not happen four years ago. I spent a lot of time cooling my heels in the outer offices of people who told me no four years ago. I now have people calling me to ask me what can they do?”

There is, he added, “a big, big difference in that.”

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Rick Snyder, the newly elected Republican governor of Michigan, had promised to make big changes to state government on the campaign trail. When he released his first budget on Thursday, Mr. Snyder did just that by proposing huge spending cuts and lower business taxes.

Mr. Snyder, a newcomer to politics who ran on his business expertise as the former head of Gateway Inc., outlined his budget proposals before legislators at the state capitol. Mr. Snyder said that he hoped to address the state’s longstanding financial problems through “shared sacrifice.”

“The days of kicking the can down the road are over,” Mr. Snyder said.

Republicans control both chambers of the state legislature, but Mr. Snyder was still likely to face questions over the budget because the changes were so sweeping.

Like many states around the country, Michigan is facing a huge budget deficit, $1.4 billion in this case. Mr. Snyder’s budget would make $1.2 billion in cuts to schools, universities, local governments and other areas while asking public employees for $180 million in concessions. Mr. Snyder said that he would set an example by reducing his salary this year to $1.

Mr. Snyder’s plan also calls for big changes to the state’s tax system. He would eliminate the current business tax in favor of a flat 6 percent corporate income tax, resulting in $1.8 billion in tax cuts for businesses. To pay for those changes, he would eliminate many personal income tax credits and require pensions to be taxed.

“I’m proud of what’s been put together here,” Mr. Snyder said. “It is a package put together for Michigan’s future. We’re not looking at the past anymore. We’re looking to the future.”

Democrats quickly criticized the budget’s spending cuts and corporate tax breaks. They said that Mr. Snyder was balancing the budget on the backs of the state’s children, working families and seniors.

“Governor Snyder’s idea of shared sacrifice seems to mean that working families will do most of the sacrificing while companies continue to reap the rewards,” said Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic senate leader.

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Correction Appended

A state Supreme Court ruling in West Virginia has apparently cemented a new annual trend there: “3 years, 3 elections, 3 governors,” as one local political blogger put it.

The state’s top court has ruled that an election must be held and a new governor installed by noon on Nov. 15, 2011. That’s precisely one year from when Joe Manchin III stepped down as governor to become senator (after winning a special election to replace the late Robert Byrd) and the Earl Ray Tomblin, the state Senate president, became acting governor.

Mr. Tomblin contended he could keep that job until the next general election in November 2012. But some groups disagreed, and filed suit to force the governor and other officials to hold an election sooner.

The court said that an acting governor may not serve for longer than a year, and ordered Mr. Tomblin to call a special election.

“We’re just pleased that the court has agreed with us that the citizens of this state deserve a governor sooner rather than later,” said Gary Zuckett, executive director of the West Virginia Citizen Action Group, one of the major plaintiffs in the suit.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant said the new governor would have to take office by midday on Nov. 15. So the entire electoral process – from the state party conventions to choose a candidate, the election itself and certification – not to mention a potential recount – would need to take place by that deadline.

“It’s really quite short and sweet,” said Ms. Tennant, speaking of the process. But that certainly does not describe the list of potential candidates, including Ms. Tennant herself.

She has expressed interest in the office, and her possible opponents include many of the state’s top Democrats, including Mr. Tomblin, Treasurer John Perdue, state House Speaker Rick Thompson, and Jeff Kessler and Brooks McCabe, state Senate leaders.

On the Republican side, state Senator Clark Barnes and Betty Ireland, a former state of state, are also thought to be weighing runs. Representative Shelley Moore Capito is also a strong force in the state G.O.P., though she has said she will not run for any office before 2012.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Tomblin declined to comment pending a press conference planned for later this evening.

Correction: January 18, 2011

An earlier version of this post misspelled the name of Representative Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, and misidentified her party. She is a Republican, not a Democrat.

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