Presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann is scheduled to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) FL in September. The American Conservative Union event — its first regional Conservative Political Action Conference — will be held in Orlando.

It was also recently announced that Bachmann will be attending the policy awards dinner for Florida’s influential affiliate of the Family Research Council, the Florida Family Policy Council. The event will take place at the end of next month.

FFPC is a social conservative group that has supported anti-gay and anti-reproductive rights policies in the past. The group launched a campaign called “Ignite an Enduring Cultural Transformation” in the past year.

“Ignite” aims to raise large amounts of cash for “groups [that] intend to pass anti-gay marriage amendments, curtail abortion rights and, in at least one case, ban ‘transgender bathrooms.’”

Already scheduled to attend CPAC FL: Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and GOP presidential hopefuls Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum.

Bachmann has been a frequent speaker at CPAC’s national conference. In February, well before she announced her presidential bid, Bachmann handed out “Bachmann 12″ shirts — a reference to the 12 Apostles, according to her spokesperson — and offered to buy attendees drinks. A year earlier she took to the podium to decry “Obama’s thought police and Obama’s speech police.”

Minnesota’s two potential presidential contenders continue with plans to travel the nation. At CPAC, Rep. Michele Bachmann said she’s planning a trip to New Hampshire, while former Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced an upcoming trip to Florida. Both have been touring the country — Pawlenty hawking his new book and Bachmann assisting Republican candidates and party units with fundraising.

According to the Union Leader, Bachmann said on Friday she was planning a trip to New Hampshire.

“The Minnesota congresswoman made the announcement to reporters this afternoon at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C.,” wrote John Distaso. “According to a source who is attending the conference and witnessed the exchange, Bachmann gave no time frame for the visit to the first-in-the-nation primary state.”

Pawlenty is headed to Florida on Wednesday to speak to state legislators on the invitation of state Senate President Mike Haridopolos. Haridopolos is running for U.S. Senate in 2012 and is bringing in a number of presidential candidates because “if a person is seeking the presidency, I think they should come to Florida and let us know what they think.”

Watch it:

Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Gov. Tim Pawlenty were in the middle of the pack in a straw poll at CPAC, a yearly gathering of conservative activists. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas was, for the second year, the top vote getter with 37 percent of the first and second choice of voters. Bachmann and Pawlenty were sixth and seventh out of 15 candidates.

There were 3,742 ballots cast by CPAC attendees, the majority of whom were men under the age of 25. Ideology was fairly homogeneous as well with 84 percent saying that shrinking the government was their guiding philosophy. Only 9 percent identified themselves as social conservatives opposing gay marriage and abortion, and 6 percent saw national security as their most important ideology.

The poll asked voters for their first choice and second choice. Bachmann got 10 percent and Pawlenty got 9 percent. They were beat by Paul who got 37 percent, Mitt Romney who got 31 percent, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson who got 21 percent, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who got 16 percent and Newt Gingrich who got 11 percent of the first and second choices.

While Bachmann was in the middle of the pack, her appearances at CPAC raised her already rising stature with conservatives.

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post called her one of the winners at CPAC.

“Michele Bachmann: No candidate benefited more from the absence of social conservative rock stars Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee than the Minnesota Republican congresswoman. Her speech kicking off CPAC had the crowd on its feet and Bachmann was regularly surrounded by a cadre of admirers when she went anywhere at the convention,” he wrote.

Prior to the poll, Bachmann reportedly was handing out “Bachmann 12″ t-shirts, language her spokesperson referred not to a 2012 presidential run but to the 12 Apostles of the bible.

Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty gave his stump speech to conservatives gathered at CPAC Friday afternoon by offering up a series of digs at Barack Obama. He angrily told the president to stop apologizing for America and listed the Muslim Brotherhood as one of America’s adversaries. Pawlenty’s speech, however, was overshadowed by Obama’s own address to the nation about Egypt, and it was delivered after the closing of voting in the coveted CPAC straw poll.

Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy introduced Pawlenty. “He is a great Midwesterner with a friendly disposition. It is my pleasure to introduce the best governor Minnesota has ever had.”

Pawlenty walked in to the strain of Kid Rock’s “Born Free.” He told Duffy, who is a former star of the MTV show the Real World and a lumberjack sportsman, “Bring that budget axe and swing it hard, baby!”

Pawlenty said, “I’m not one who questions the president’s birth certificate, but don’t you wonder what planet he’s from?”

“He’s been really good at duping the mainstream media,” he added. “The policies of the left encroach every day on the freedom that makes our country great. We will never stop fighting for our freedom.”

He talked about the nation’s founders and how they created America “under God.”

“We as a nation need to turn towards God, not away from God,” he said.

He also spoke about fixing the nation’s budget deficit. “We need more common sense and less Obama nonsense,” he said. “There may be some Democrats in the room so I’ll say it really slow so they can understand: We can’t spend more than we take in.”

He also touted his accomplishment in Minnesota. “I come from the state of McCarthy, Mondale, Humphrey, Wellstone, and now United States Senator Al Franken,” Pawlenty said, generating boos from the audience. “But we cut government in Minnesota, and if we can do it there we can do it anywhere!”

He continued, “I drew a line in the sand and said, ‘Absolutely not.’” He bragged about having set the record for the most vetoes of bills in one year in Minnesota and touted the government shutdown as a major accomplishment.

“We had the first government shutdown in my state in the history of my state,” he said.

He outlined three federal policies he’d like to see. “We should not raise the debt ceiling, we should pass a constitutional amendment to finally balance the budget, and — here’s one I know you will agree with — we should repeal ‘ObamaCare.’”

Pawlenty also called for a more aggressive foreign policy. “Bullies respect strength, they don’t respect weakness,” he said. “So when the U.S. projects its national security interests around the world, we need to do it with strength.”

He called Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood “bullies.”

“Mr. President, when it comes to bullies, might makes right,” he said. “Strength makes them submit. We need to get tough with our enemies.”

Pawlenty added, “Mr. President, stop apologizing for our country.”

The last few minutes of Pawlenty’s speech were cribbed almost directly from his book trailer and send the crowd into chants of “T-Paw.”

Here’s the trailer:

Further fueling the speculation that Rep. Michele Bachmann may be making a bid for the White House in 2012, she handed out jerseys with “Bachmann” on the front and “12″ on the back at a reception Thursday evening. As promised, Bachmann also gave away vouchers for free drinks as she collected information from attendees at CPAC, an annual gathering of conservatives which has drawn over 11,000 attendees this week.

While Bachmann’s spokesman Sergio Gor said the “12″ was a reference to the 12 Apostles and meant to convey “Obama out in 2012,” the information gathering that Bachmann conducted in order for attendees to receive their shirts and free drinks suggests the number could also mean a run for president — or, at the very least, perhaps it was part of her campaign to win the CPAC presidential straw poll.

Minnesota Public Radio reporters Mark Zdechlik and Brett Neely attended the reception: “Bachmann staff members asked them to line up and were handing out forms for each to fill out. From a glance at a distance, the forms included information about where the attendees go to school and their email addresses…. While many of the Bachmann fans in line are too young to become major political donors, by gathering their email addresses, Bachmann’s organization could be creating a mailing list it can use to recruit volunteers for future campaigns.”

If there one way to win the coveted presidential straw poll at CPAC, it’s to offer everyone in attendance a free drink. Rep. Michele Bachmann, who’s rumored to be running in 2012, kicked off the conservative gathering on Thursday with a rousing speech bashing “Obamacare” and Rep. Nancy Pelosi that included an announcement that she was hosting a party Thursday evening — and the bar tab was on her.

To Saturday Night Live fans, Bachmann joked, “Someone told me I need to find the right camera,” alluding to criticism of her tea party response to President Obama’s State of the Union address by the sketch comedy show.

“It’s a new day in Washington, D.C. We have so much to be grateful for,” Bachmann said. She talked about the three-legged stool of the movement which includes fiscal conservatives, social conservatives and security hawks.

“You have been part of the down payment on bringing back liberty to America,” she said. “You helped pry that gavel out of Speaker Pelosi’s hands. She wasn’t really willing to let John Boehner have it, but he got it.”

Bachmann praised the election of Republican governors and state legislatures across the country in 2010 because they will control the redistricting process.

“The political lines will be drawn with these new governors and representatives controlling the chambers across the country. If there was ever a time to make a change, this was it,” she said. “This was a historic change election and this was the change we were hoping for.”

Then she offered a free drink to those in attendance as thanks for their work.

“I think after all that work, I think it’s proper and fitting that we throw ourselves a big party,” she said. “At 5:30 pm, I’m throwing a party, the bar tab is mine, so let’s party hardy tonight. And the bar tab is on me!”

She threw the activists plenty of red meat as well. “If President Obama wins another term… we will be in debt to the tune of $21 trillion. That’s six years from now.”

She continued, “The president of China is named Hu [Jintao]. With all the money we owe China, I think we might rightly say Hu’s your daddy!”

Two potential GOP presidential contenders from Minnesota have signed on to speak at February’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, both a staple of past CPAC events, will again speak at a  conference that’s never without controversy. Last year, Sarah Palin dropped out, in part, because the John Birch Society was a sponsor. This year, religious right groups are boycotting the event because the gay conservative group GOProud is a sponsor.

Bachmann told Facebook fans on Friday morning that she will be attending:

“I am excited to tell you that I have received and accepted an invitation to speak at CPAC this year. I hope I will have the chance to meet you while I am there. Please let me know if you be attending.”

Bachmann attended the event in 2009 where she said to the new RNC chair, “Michael Steele, you be da man!” and railed against taxation with representation. “I just wondered that if our founders thought taxation without representation was bad, what would they think of representation WITH taxation?”

In 2010, she spoke about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

“These are rights that government can never take away from us,” she said. “What does that say about Obama’s thought police and Obama’s speech police. That is not what the founders meant.”

Here’s her 2010 speech:

Pawlenty is also confirmed as a speaker, according to the CPAC website. When he attended in 2009 he praised wife Mary: “I want to acknowledge and thank my beautiful wife, Mary. She’s amazing, she’s fantastic and … she’s hot, absolutely.”

In 2010, he said, “God’s in charge. There are some people who say ‘Pawlenty, don’t bring that up. Its politically incorrect.’ Hogwash! …I say to those naysayers that try to crowd out God from the discussion, if it’s good enough for the founding fathers it’s good enough for us.”

Here’s his 2010 remarks:

Rep. Ron Paul. Photo: Zuma Press

The news that Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) had won the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference presidential straw poll — beating Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who only garnered six percent of the vote — was leaked early, to soften the blow. Before GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio had even begun to click through a Powerpoint presentation that shared the results, reporters were informed of Paul’s easy, 31 percent victory over nine Republicans tipped as serious 2012 contenders. Those reporters started to write stories on Paul’s surprise win, waiting for the official announcement — and an explosion of jeering and booing in the main ballroom of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. Sighing with relief, press aides for the annual conservative conference made sure that the on-site media had heard that reaction.

Just as relieved were mainstream GOP activists and traditional conservative thinkers who were pondering ways to make the party electable again. “I think Mitt Romney’s 22 percent was impressive,” said Rob Willington, a Massachusetts Republican strategist who’d designed GOTV technology for now-Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.). He was reflecting on the poll — not too significant, he said — in Murphy’s, a bar a few blocks from the hotel, late Saturday. Romney’s forces, he said, hadn’t lifted a finger; Paul’s had campaigned for the prize.

In another corner of the bar, conservative author David Frum, editor of Frum Forum (formerly New Majority), brushed off the result. “The Paul people all voted and the others didn’t,” said Frum. “I’m hoping it’s a matter of self-selection.”

The importance of minimizing Paul’s win united conservative activists like almost nothing else that came from the three-day conference. Even Brad Dayspring — who, as a spokesman for GOP whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), counts on Paul for “no” votes — fired off two tweets dismissing the result. But the 2,395 ballots cast were a CPAC record, up from the 1,757 cast in 2009, when Mitt Romney scored his third conservative win. And moments after the Paul results were booed, the crowd gave a roaring ovation to radio and Fox News host Glenn Beck, who rewarded it with a 56-minute lecture on “progressivism’s” war on American values with historical lessons — the evil of the Federal Reserve, the destructiveness of Woodrow Wilson, the folly of “spreading democracy” — that had featured prominently in Paul’s speech, too.

For as little attention as it got — for the first time in anyone’s memory, the news cycle-driving Drudge Report did not even run with the news — Paul’s victory in an unscientific straw poll revealed plenty about the state of conservatism. Narrowly,  More broadly, it provided a look at the ideological hardening going on within the conservative movement as it girds for the 2010 elections. According to some polls, the Republican Party is on track to recover control of Congress and have a voice again in how America is governed. At CPAC, there was far less attention on how the party would govern America than on the need to disavow its past, popular embraces of “big government” — and on the need to embrace a hardcore libertarian philosophy that views environmentalism and the progressive movement as fatal threats to freedom.

Paul’s youthful crusade of hopeful libertarians — its size and its enthusiasm — was one of the real surprises of the conference. Paul-inspired or affiliated groups occupied five booths in the event’s exhibit hall; the Campaign for Liberty (the organization he launched after folding his 2008 presidential bid), Young Americans for Liberty (the student group launched at the same time), Students for Liberty, the Ladies of Liberty Alliance, and the Future of Freedom Foundation. Libertarian CPAC attendees packed room after room for lectures by the likes of Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano and likely 2012 presidential candidate Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico. They passed out a documentary about the Paul campaign, “For Liberty,” and copies of “Young American Revolution,” a magazine for college students with contributions ranging from an essay on economics by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) to a Wake Forest University student’s tipsheet on how she organized a blockbuster speech by Paul on her campus.

The Paul-inspired groups were responsible for one of the pivotal moments of the three-day conference. On Friday, Students for Liberty president Alexander McCobin used his speech in the rapid-fire “Two-Minute Activist” line-up to “commend CPAC for inviting GOProud,” a gay Republican group. That got a rise out of Ryan Sobra, an anti-gay activist who followed McCobin and condemned the conference for inviting the group. When he was booed, Sobra confusingly attacked Jeff Frazee — the head of Young Americans for Liberty. But he was onto something — it was the presence of Paul fans, who had crowded into the room for his upcoming speech, that meant Sobra would get more boos than cheers.

“I was thanking my lucky stars that the Ron Paul fans were there,” said Jimmy LaSalva, the executive director of GOProud, in a Saturday interview with The Independent. “The Campaign for Liberty deserves a lot of credit for setting that tone.”

Paul’s influence surfaced in other ways that were less helpful for CPAC’s optics. The far-right John Birch Society, of which Paul has been a longtime supporter, made a showy return to the mainstream conservative fold with a co-sponsorship and booth at CPAC; because the organization helpfully offered free, spacious merchandise bags, plenty of CPAC attendees walked around sporting JBS logos. Oath Keepers, a year-old coalition of right-wing military veterans, helped distribute copies of the Paul documentary — a favor to Paul activist Michael Moresco, who had won the organization’s “citizen activist of the year” award for biking from the Statue of Liberty to Alcatraz Prison. “It’s the direction I think this country’s headed,” said Moresco — from freedom to imprisonment.

But far from being controversial, Paul’s critique of conservatism — that the GOP lost its way by growing government and must promise to slash and abolish as much as possible if it wins again — was a constant theme. It was present on Saturday when Ann Coulter, a CPAC star for whom the ballroom filled up an hour before her speech began, argued that conservatives needed to abolish the IRS and the CIA. When she ran out of jokes about John Edwards’s sexuality and Ted Kennedy’s drinking, she suggested that the GOP needed a no-to-everything philosophy similar to Paul’s. She paused and mugged when that inspired a chant of “End the Fed” — a Paul-divined slogan.

“I’m curious about this movement over there for eliminating the Fed,” said Coulter. “Yes, End the Fed.” She answered a Paul fan’s question by admitting that “if Ron Paul supports it and it’s not about foreign policy, I’m for it.”

On the surface, rhetoric like that contradicted a much-noticed CPAC theme — praise for George W. Bush. Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, told The Independent that Bush boosterism was a friendly show of support for “our guy” after eight years of drubbing by liberals. And that was it.

“For seven years he didn’t speak at CPAC,” said Norquist. “The eighth year we didn’t want him and he showed up because CPAC was one of the only places he could speak to without being booed. Here was a man who deliberately divorced himself from the movement.” Medicare Part D, the Department of Homeland Security, and all the rest of it hadn’t been forgotten.

Outside of the conference, some critics accused activists of a kind of nihilism that wouldn’t be productive for Republicans. “CPAC has becoming increasingly more libertarian and less Republican over the last years,” grumbled Mike Huckabee on his Fox News show, “one of the reasons I didn’t go this year.”

Huckabee would only allow that the Paul win reflected “the anger and the mood” that was fueling Tea Party protests and Democratic losses in some key elections. In a separate straw poll question on activists’ opinions of conservative leaders, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) was found to be the most popular figure in Republican politics– 71 percent said they liked him. In the Senate, DeMint has worked to block and filibuster as many Democratic initiatives as possible while proposing government-slashing, entitlement-cutting, brazen bills of the kind Paul’s long discussed. At CPAC, he said he’d rather have a Senate with “30 Marco Rubios” — the Florida candidate for Senate who keynoted the conference — than “60 Arlen Specters.” When asked how that made sense in the era of constant filibusters, DeMint said a crisis would lead the way to more pure policy.

“In the short term, we can’t expect to get any of our ideas through,” DeMint told The Independent. “But at some point, we’re going to be forced to do something. It’s not going to be so much a matter of political philosophy if we can’t pay our debts and we’re facing default. At that point I think you’re going to see even liberals realize we don’t have any choice. We just need to be in a position where we have enough conservatives to come up with some functional policies to get us out of this.” DeMint shook his head. “I hope it won’t take a complete breakdown for us to come together.”

Paul wasn’t around to enjoy his triumph. On Saturday morning, he returned to his east Texas district to debate three opponents in his early March Republican primary. But before leaving on Friday night, he reflected on how and why his constant refrain for fiscal austerity and abolishing most 20th century government expansion had become Republican dogma.

“When I went back to Congress in 1996, Tom DeLay came out to a function in my district,” Paul told The Independent. “He came out of it and he said, ‘You know what? Ron said that 20 years ago! Now it’s the same message and 20 more years.’” Paul turned and stopped to talk with a gushing middle-aged fan, then turned back to The Independent.

“And with more credibility on the economics!”

Minnesota blogger Ed Morrissey introduced Bachmann with a swipe at Sen. Al Franken. “The state bird is the loon, which explains why the the state question is: Al Franken? Really?! ACORN. Yeah… We have things to apologize for, Al Franken being chief among them.”

“Michele Bachmann was a tea party activist before the tea arrived,” he said, praising the Sixth Congressional District Republican.

Bachmann approached the podium to the strains of Tom Jones’ “She’s a Lady,” to which Bachmann quipped, “Thank you, Senator Specter,” a reference to Sen. Arlen Specter who recently asked Bachmann to” act like a lady” when she kept interrupting him.

“We really have a great sense of humor in Minnesota,” she said. “We are very good humored people.”

At one point, Bachmann showed a slide of a billboard recently spotted near Wyoming, Minn., — which she proudly noted is in her district — showing President George W. Bush and the words “Miss me yet?”

She slammed Obama’s policies. “This is intending to fail,” she said. “In a matter of months, we have watched as the Obama administration has accumulated more debt than in all previous 233 years of American history, taking us from $10 trillion to $14 trillion.”

After Bachmann made the same claim in North Dakota last week, Talking Points Memo interviewed Concord Coalition policy director Joshua Gordon, who said Bachmann’s number don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Then on President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she said, “He turned what was a manageable recession and turned it into a 10-year depression.”

She spoke about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

“These are rights that government can never take away from us,” she said. “What does that say about Obama’s thought police and Obama’s speech police. That is not what the founders meant.”

And, as she did at a speech in North Dakota last week, Bachmann wept, this time telling the story of the “Four Chaplains,” chaplains on the World War II troop ship the USAT Dorchester gave up their life jackets — and perished — so others could escape the torpedo-damaged vessel.

Watch her speech: