WASHINGTON - Hosting a gathering of young conservatives at a bar here this month, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty delivered a tart critique of the nation's mounting debt. He called it a "pile of poo."
Elsewhere in public, especially before key conservative groups, Pawlenty has termed federal spending a "Ponzi scheme" and President Obama as someone who has "proven that someone can deserve a Nobel Prize less than Al Gore."
Still amiable but increasingly sharp-tongued, Pawlenty has shown he can serve up the meat and potatoes the GOP's Tea Party base craves. But for some in the GOP's mainstream establishment, the ramped-up rhetoric could test his viability as a presidential hopeful in 2012.
Polling nationally in the single digits, Pawlenty is trying to break out with strongly worded stands on deficit spending and national defense. On national TV, he has accused Obama of being "nearly incoherent" on the Egyptian uprising. At a conference of conservative activists, he said Obama was too ready to "appease" Iran, Russia and the Muslim Brotherhood.
While he said he would not question Obama's birth certificate, he did ask conservatives at a recent gathering, "Don't you at least wonder what planet he's from?"
Pawlenty had been typecast by national political watchers as the mild Midwesterner, a polite conservative who stayed away from rough stuff. So what happened to Mr. Nice Guy?
Pawlenty watchers say his basic conservatism hasn't changed, only his willingness to let fly the flourishes necessary to grab attention in a crowd of GOP presidential contenders.
"We know everybody is edging up to the starting line," said former state legislator Phil Krinkie, president of the Minnesota Taxpayers League. "And, yeah, it's time for him to be a little more bold, a little more aggressive, ramping it up."