Lawmakers joined with Tea Party leaders on Thursday to warn that revelations that the IRS had targeted conservative groups could portend further abuses of government power, specifically in the way in which President Barack Obama's health care reform law is implemented.

The Capitol Hill press conference, which featured frequent references to Obamacare, happened hours before House Republicans were to hold their 37th vote to repeal or replace part of the law.

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Tea Party figurehead, argued that the IRS's efforts to single out conservative advocacy groups for additional scrutiny could lead to similar profiling in implementing health care reform.

"Could there potentially be political implications regarding health care, access to health care, denial of health care - will that happen based upon a person's political beliefs or their religiously held beliefs?" she asked, saying that asking such a question before the IRS scandal would not have been “reasonable," but that now it was.

"Will our most personal information be used to deny or delay access to health care? Or could it be possible that our sensitive information could be used to blackmail Americans or even potentially to embarrass Americans?" she continued.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a Tea Party darling with presidential ambitions (and himself a physician) added: "I'm quite worried that your medical records now will be evaluated by the IRS that seems to have the ability and seems to have the penchant to use political persuasion and political oppo to search out political opponents."

He also said that while acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller’s resignation was a "step in the right direction," more heads needed to roll.

"Someone needs to be held responsible, someone needs to be imprisoned," he said.

Jenny Beth Martin, of the group Tea Party Patriots, suggested the IRS had political motivations for targeting groups like hers, despite the recently-released inspector general’s report which concluded no agents were driven by politics.

"Government agents have used the IRS as a weapon to silence speech, harass innocent Americans and perhaps sway elections," she said.

But despite the strong words against the IRS and the Obama administration, Bachmann and others shied from calling for Obama’s impeachment, as Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., did over the administration’s handling of the attack on the American diplomatic facility in Benghazi.

"We also don't want to jump to conclusions. We want to go where the facts lead us and we aren't interested in creating our own facts contrary to some of our federal agencies," Bachmann said, though she added many of her constituents in Minnesota ask her, "Why aren’t you impeaching the president? He has been making unconstitutional actions since he came into office."

"So I will tell you what I’m hearing from people back home," Bachmann said.

When the Tea Party movement made its official debut on April 15, 2009, it made quite a political splash with events across the country protesting President Obama's policies on that Tax Day.

Four years later, that splash looks more like pebble thrown into a pond.

Yesterday, Tea Party groups held events tied to this year’s Tax Day. The group FreedomWorks, for example, organized an "action day" at the U.S. Capitol (which took place before the Boston bombings).

But judged by its sparse attendance -- dozens, not thousands, attended the FreedomWorks rally -- the Tea Party is no longer a national force shaking American politics, although it has continued to influence today's Republican Party.

Over the past four years, Tea Party's political impact on the Republican Party and conservatism has been a mixed record.

There is little doubt that the Tea Party injected energy and enthusiasm into a Republican Party and conservatism after losing the 2008 presidential election. And that helped Republicans win the U.S. House and pick up Senate seats in the 2010 midterms.

The Tea Party also shaped the platform that the GOP's presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, campaigned on. (Look no further than these remarks from Romney's presidential kick-off speech in June 2011: "I will insist that Washington learns to respect the Constitution, including the 10th Amendment. We will return responsibility and authority to the states for dozens of government programs.")

But the same energy and enthusiasm that moved the GOP to the right also contributed to the party losing winnable Senate seats in 2010 and 2012 (like in Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, and Nevada). 

And the platform Romney campaigned on in 2012 turned out to be the losing one.

One reason why the Tea Party, four years later, has moved from a political force to relative afterthought is its unpopularity. According to a Jan. 2013 NBC/WSJ poll, only 23 percent of Americans viewed the Tea Party positively, versus 47 percent who viewed it negatively – down from its net-positive 28 percent-to-21 percent rating in Jan. 2010. (But the same 2013 poll found the Tea Party still remains popular among GOP respondents.)

Another reason was a story like this one -- about FreedomWorks -- from late last year:

“The day after Labor Day, just as campaign season was entering its final frenzy, FreedomWorks, the Washington-based tea party organization, went into free fall. Richard K. Armey, the group’s chairman and a former House majority leader, walked into the group’s Capitol Hill offices with his wife, Susan, and an aide holstering a handgun at his waist. The aim was to seize control of the group and expel Armey’s enemies: The gun-wielding assistant escorted FreedomWorks’ top two employees off the premises, while Armey suspended several others who broke down in sobs at the news.”

Yet perhaps the biggest explanation for the difference between four years ago and now is because the Republican Party essentially co-opted the movement.

Consider the Tea Party's calls for balanced budgets, liberty, states’ rights, and the elimination of earmarks -- they're all staples of today's GOP.

(Of course, this isn't too dissimilar from how some of Occupy Wall Street's populist rhetoric and language was co-opted by Democrats and President Obama during the 2012 presidential campaign.)

And that's what often happens to social movements, according to some political scientists: The major political parties co-opt them.

So while attendance at a Tea Party rally might decline four years later, its ideas and platforms have become fixtures of American politics.

The Republican Party’s internal struggle over how to expand its reach will play out in stark relief at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, with activists locked in a near-civil war over the basic question of who should be part of the movement – and who should not.

This year’s meeting has already made news with its exclusion of notable names from the invite list: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. 

There will be plenty of conservative stars, like Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky, along with 2012 vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan (among other potential 2016 presidential candidates). And attendees will have a chance to reacquaint themselves with familiar names and faces from the not-so-distant past such as Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and the ubiquitous Donald Trump.

But the annual conservative confab comes at a serious and crucial moment for the Republican Party: Its last two presidential nominees lost decisively to President Barack Obama, and its lone instrument of power -- the GOP majority in the House -- has been constantly plagued by infighting between conservative insurgents and its establishment-minded leadership.

And the American right seems as divided as ever over the path forward.

“I think, increasingly, we as Republicans have come across as intolerant and unfocused on the needs of the underserved,” said Fred Malek, a fixture of GOP politics for decades.

“And we need to speak much more to the aspirational needs of people, and not speak about the dependence of the ‘47 percent,’” he added, referencing 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s infamous comments, “but rather how the ‘47 percent’ become part of the 25 percent or 10 percent or 1 percent.”

Ideological fealty to marginalize GOP?
That internal struggle threatens to spill into the open at CPAC, a gathering that has been established as an important gathering for official Republicans, yet still attracts the kind of stalwart conservative activists who have helped to ignite this GOP family feud. 

“I thought it was a mistake to exclude Christie,” said Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman who remains active in the party’s political leadership. “It reinforces this narrow, closed stereotype of Republicans.”

Christie angered conservatives by agreeing to implement insurance exchanges under Obama’s health care reform law, and for praising the president’s handling of Hurricane Sandy just days before the election. McDonnell upset conservatives with his new transportation law, which includes some new taxes.

“I would argue that they do not have too much to offer up in terms of the future of the conservative movement,” Jeff Bell, of the American Principles Project, said of the two governors.

Those warring views cut to the heart of the modern GOP’s internal rift. On one side are conservatives who are eager to excommunicate Republicans who commit the slightest act of ideological heresy. The other faction is composed of Republicans who worry that the party’s insistence on ideological fealty will continue to marginalize the GOP amid a changing electorate.

Though no immediate resolution is in sight, the Republican National Committee will weigh in following its own autopsy of the party’s shortcomings during last fall’s elections. It will recommend improved digital operations and a more robust outreach, but is also expected to emphasize the need for some candidates to speak in less shrill terms about sensitive issues.

“We can’t run the same campaigns. For some, it means that boneheaded comments about rape and women – that’s just not going to fly,” said a source familiar with the report, referencing GOP Senate candidates in Indiana and Missouri who lost winnable races last fall due to their controversial comments about rape.

Romney's first remarks since election
The forthcoming RNC report and this week’s CPAC gathering add up to a potentially pivotal week for the future of the party.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters file photo

Sen. Marco Rubio addresses the American Conservative Union's annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, February 9, 2012.

And though McDonnell and Christie were excluded from the gathering, other corners of the GOP will be well-represented. Tea Party darlings like Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, will each speak.

Also on display will be conservatives who may hope to unify the GOP as the party’s presidential nominee in 2016. Along with Rubio, Paul and Ryan, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will also address attendees.

The influential conference concludes with an oft-hyped, closely watched straw poll of attendees’ preference in a presidential nominee.

A past winner of two such straw polls, Romney, will make his first public speech since the election on Friday. And former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose national star power has waxed and waned in the scope of a single presidential election cycle, will speak on Saturday.

“There’s going to be a lot of heat, but not much light,” on the presidential front said Craig Shirley, a Reagan biographer and conservative PR guru. “It’s not going to resolve itself until the first stirrings of the 2014 midterm elections.”

Related:

On eve of CPAC, GOP searches for identity, policy principles

Obama's meeting with GOP: Cordial, but no consensus

This story was originally published on Thu Mar 14, 2013 4:31 AM EDT

Colin E. Braley / AP

Senator Orrin Hatch, along with his wife Elaine, thanks his supporters after his primary win Tuesday night.

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch accomplished Tuesday night what few other veteran Republican senators have done in recent years, managing to fend off a primary challenge from his right.

The Associated Press declared Hatch the projected winner of the Utah Republican Senate nomination, emerging victorious in the first primary the veteran senator had faced since first being elected in 1976.

Conservatives had targeted Hatch for defeat this cycle, throwing their support behind state Sen. Dan Liljenquist, who hoped the Tea Party wave that has caused heartburn for establishment Republicans would carry him to victory versus Hatch. 

Beating Hatch would have marked a significant changing of the guard in Utah, one of the most deeply Republican states, where the GOP primary serves often as the de-facto general elections. Conservatives managed to deny longtime Utah Sen. Robert Bennett (R) renomination during the 2010 elections. Mike Lee rallied conservative activists to deny Bennett the GOP nod, and was subsequently elected to the Senate that fall. 

Hatch had seemed to have learned the lessons of that campaign, working assiduously to secure his conservative flank and building a warchest to beat back a Tea Party challenge. 

He tacked to the right in tone and on certain key votes, locking up endorsements from talk radio favorites and even former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who’s more often than not endorsed challengers to established Republican lawmakers than the incumbents themselves.

Hatch's re-election strategy offered a roadmap for entrenched Republicans looking to fend off a conservative challenge. The Utah senator's approach broke, for example, from that of Sen. Richard Lugar's. The Indiana senator had largely been defiant of Tea Party forces, and lost a primary to State Treasurer Richard Mourdock earlier this year. Both Hatch and Lugar took office in 1977.

The early and aggressive effort by Hatch included an attempt to scare off would-be challengers before they even entered the race. The senator was particularly public in taking on two-term Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who had been viewed as a potentially formidable challenger but ultimately declined to run for Senate.

A major trump card for Hatch, though, came in the form of Mitt Romney. Perhaps no endorsement for Hatch was more important than Romney’s, who is held in high esteem in Utah due to his own Mormon faith, as well as the work Romney had done in 2002 to turn around the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Romney appeared with Hatch in Utah earlier this month to underscore his support for the longtime senator.

With more endorsements by prominent Republicans and a new poll showing him leading next week’s Wisconsin primary, Mitt Romney is on the cusp of becoming the party’s presumptive nominee.

Yet it’s taken Romney far longer to win the nomination than most observers expected, especially against under-funded and under-organized competitiors.

Why?

Republicans and analysts point to several culprits: the proportional delegate system, Romney’s gaffes, his flip-flops, his message, even his Mormon faith.

But he's also been plagued this primary season by a Republican Party still in the midst of an identity crisis, which has made things rocky for the former governor (and former moderate) from Massachusetts.

First Thoughts: Romney to wrap it up?

A wave of conservative enthusiasm -- with the new “Tea Party” movement as its leading edge -- propelled Republicans to record victories in the 2010 midterm elections, which delivered them control of the House and gains in the Senate.

The new freshman class, though, demanded more purity from their leaders. The very enthusiasm that helped Republicans win back part of Congress hampered their ability to govern; House Speaker John Boehner encountered great difficulties in convincing the newly elected ideologues to join in legislative compromises.

These fratricidal squabbles continued into the presidential campaign, where conservatives have resisted, at virtually every turn until now, the opportunity to get onboard with the establishment-favored candidate who’s regarded as most electable: Romney. 

“There's clearly a bit of a crisis,” said former Delaware Rep. Mike Castle, a moderate Republican who was considered a shoo-in to win his state’s Senate seat in 2010 before losing a primary to the Tea Party-backed Christine O’Donnell.

“The division and savagely attacking of other Republicans when they don't vote the right way I think is very counterproductive,” added Castle, who is supporting Romney (ironically, along with O’Donnell). “I don't think that has appealed to some Republicans, and I'm sure it doesn't appeal to independents and Democrats.”

Other reasons why Romney has been unable to gel conservatives behind his candidacy are probably more technical. Republicans cite his campaign's shoddy work in courting conservatives, the new primary rules that prolong the nominating process, and the candidate's gaffes at key points in the campaign. Romney also struggled to shake his image as a “flip-flopper” at points in the campaign, an image underscored by a senior aide’s recent comment likening the candidate’s pivot to the general election to an Etch A Sketch.

But while Romney is hardly a perfect candidate for today’s Republican Party, such a mythical creature might not exist anywhere on the planet. In some important respects, Romney's troubles stem from a party that is re-fighting its internal struggles from 2010.

“I think it's directly attributable to the spirit of 2010,” said Ken Buck, one of the Tea Party-linked Senate candidates that year, said in reference to the former Massachusetts governor’s struggles.

While the Tea Party -- a group of especially conservative activists angered by the bailouts to the financial industry and President Barack Obama’s health care law -- helped give kindling to the GOP in 2010, its insistence on ideological fealty in Republican candidates was seen as a factor that limited their success.

Republicans were successful in retaking the House but fell short of winning the necessary seats in the Senate, where Tea Party-backed nominees in Nevada, Delaware, and Colorado lost in opportunities Republicans had hoped to gain.

(Other candidates backed by the Tea Party were able to win in states like Utah, Kentucky and Florida, however.)

NBC/Marist poll: Romney leads ahead of Wisconsin primary

But the fallout hasn’t been limited to those primaries; Boehner’s struggles to win the votes of conservative freshmen elected in 2010 are well-documented. Those freshmen have pushed their leader to hew to strictly conservative positions at major junctures in the last year and a half, fueling a perception of Republicans in Congress as an intransigent lot, while weakening the speaker’s bargaining position in fights over spending cuts and the debt ceiling.

The tug of war between ideological purity and practical politics has been on display, again, during the campaign for Republicans to pick their nominee versus Obama.

Romney has long been considered the tentative frontrunner to become the GOP’s nominee, and he appears poised now to accrue the necessary delegates to accomplish that task.

But this primary has been defined, if nothing else, than by the flailing search by conservatives to identify a more palatable alternative to Romney.

While he’s stayed steady in primary voter polls, a veritable merry-go-round of challengers -- Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Gingrich again, and now, Santorum again -- have overtaken him in the polls before fading.

Moreover, exit polls of the primary contests to date have borne out Romney’s struggles in winning over self-described “very conservative” primary voters -- the core of the modern Republican Party.

While Republicans of all stripes express confidence that the party will rally around the eventual nominee, the conservative wing of the party has been nothing less than dogged in its resistance to Romney.

Romney and his current main rival, Santorum, “reflect different parts of the Republican Party,” said Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, one of the GOP’s veteran political strategists, who has remained neutral in the primary fight.

“Both of them have proven remarkably tough and durable -- it's like watching a great bar room fight. That's the kind of punching match that we're in right now,” Cole said. “In a sense, Republican voters want to be assured that whoever emerges is tough enough to go toe to toe with the president.”

Bachmann, the Minnesota congresswoman who represented the Tea Party in her presidential bid, acknowledged last week on “Morning Joe” that the Republican Party is “factionalized” at the moment.

But some Republicans argue that Romney’s struggles were essentially avoidable, and they blamed his campaign for doing a poor job of reaching out to conservatives.

Poll: Majority of GOP says Gingrich, Paul should end campaigns

A former chairman of a major state Republican Party, who is sympathetic to Romney’s candidacy and requested to speak anonymously in order to offer more candid analysis, argued that the former Massachusetts governor’s struggles were directly related to poor outreach.

“They’ve been unwilling or unable to close the deal among conservatives,” the chairman said of the Romney campaign.

“Why don’t they send someone to Grover’s meeting in D.C.?” added that person, referring to the weekly meeting of conservative activists hosted by anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist.

The suggestion was that Romney’s campaign was basically self-involved and did little to show conservatives that Romney was one of them -- an especially curious strategy given Romney’s presidential run in 2008, which was staked on running as the conservative alternative to John McCain.

“There’s no history there; they’ve never dated,” said Craig Shirley, a Reagan biographer whose public relations firm did work for the Gingrich campaign for a stretch this primary. “It’s a little hard to ask people to marry you when you haven’t courted them first.”

The Romney campaign’s strategy, though, has sought to maintain the candidate’s viability for the general election to the best of their ability. The Romney campaign has been nothing if not careful in navigating Romney through the briar patch of conservatives’ demands on the candidate.

But the primary campaign appears to have taken its toll; a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Wednesday had Romney’s unfavorable ratings at an all-time high. Romney will no doubt pivot toward the center in the general election, but he has more ground to make up than many Republicans would like.

“The question becomes: Can the eventual Republican candidate, diminished by the primary, come back and win the election,” said Castle.

But Buck, perhaps illustrating conservatives’ ambivalence toward Romney, said it would be “fascinating” to see really how competitive Romney would be versus Obama.

“The question is, which Mitt Romney?” he asked.

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C – Sen. Jim DeMint, the Tea Party favorite whose endorsement remains one of the most coveted in South Carolina (even though he insists he won’t get behind anyone), said today that he thinks that fragmentation in the electorate is not a bad thing.

Speaking to a group of reporters after a speech at the Tea Party Convention here, DeMint said that when he talks to Tea Party supporters across the state, “they’re supporting all of the candidates. They’re pretty divided and I think that’s a good thing because there are good things about all the candidates.”

When pressed on why he thinks division is a good idea, DeMint chuckled, saying, “In my Senate primary I got 22 percent.”

During his speech to about 150 Tea Party supporters here, DeMint praised, by name, all candidates – even a few who dropped out – except Mitt Romney, on whom he lavished praise earlier this week, and Rick Perry.

DeMint said South Carolinians wanted a candidate with “the courage of a Michele Bachmann or the simplicity of the proposals of Herman Cain. You look at Newt Gingrich’s great ideas and Santorum’s strong on social issues.”

He even praised Ron Paul, who has wide Tea Party support but whose views on foreign policy make him unacceptable to a large swath of the Republican electorate.

“Look at Ron Paul,” DeMint started. “If [Republicans] don’t listen to the problems of the unaccountable and out-of-control of the federal reserve, then our party is not going to be a governing majority.”

While he mentioned those candidates, he suggested he wouldn’t be picking one out of the group because depending on whom he supported, he might get pushback from all Tea Partiers who didn’t also like that candidate.

“I know there are probably a lot of folks in this room that feel strongly a lot of different ways and that’s why I am not involved,” he said as the audience laughed.

Columbia, S.C. -- Michele Bachmann announced 19 additional members of her South Carolina Tea Party coalition today, including three who will serve as her regional co-chairs: Steve Rapchick, a 9/12 leader, as Lowcountry chairman; Preston Baines, a former Perry supporter, as Midlands chairman; and Tea Party activist Jonathon Hill as Upstate chairman. In addition to Tea Party supporters announced last week, Bachmann’s Tea Party coalition in the Palmetto State now includes 56 members.

"I once was a strong Perry supporter. Now, as we move closer to the election, I see that Michele Bachmann’s consistent conservative record is what our country needs. We don’t need more Washington-insiders or pretend conservatives like Newt Gingrich,” Baines, of Columbia, says in a release to be sent out tomorrow by the campaign.

The full list of new members:

Steve Rapchick, Mount Pleasant
Preston Baines, Columbia
Jonathon Hill, Anderson
Jeff Diemier, Mount Pleasant
Robert Fry, James Island
Lynda Fry, James Island
Jim Hargett, Greenville
Rick Moesser, Fountain Inn
Scott Napier, Greer
Virginia Jelley, Taylors
Harold Blitch, Charleston
Gerald Addision, Berkley
Linda Addison, Berkley
Raye Chapman, Daniel Island
Tom Russo, Jr., Bluffton
Bob Mcewen, Savannah (former Cain supporter)
Austin Jones, Greenville (former Cain supporter)
Shelia Morgan, Hilton Head
Tom Morgan, Hilton Head

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin speaks during a Tea Party Express rally on Sept. 5, in Manchester, New Hampshire.

By NBC's Alex Moe

MANCHESTER, NH –- In a small park in the first-in-the-nation primary state, Sarah Palin spent her Labor Day addressing a Tea Party Express rally. She was critical of President Obama and, at times, it seemed Palin was building for a presidential announcement of her own.

“We need people with a proven record of reform and who are willing to take on the tough challenges to run into danger, if you will, not away from it,” the former Alsaska governor said as the crowd broke out in chants of “you” and “run, Sarah, run.”

But she was quick to back away and focused her speech on the Tea Party movement.

“We need to grow this moment,” Palin told the crowd of more than 1,000 supporters in Veterans Memorial Park. “The Tea Party movement is bigger than any one person and it’s not about any one candidate, and thank goodness we don’t have any one single leader.” 

"Now we're seeing more and more folks realize the strength of this grassroots movement and they're wanting to be involved," Palin said without giving specific names. "I say, `Right on, better late than never,' for some of these campaigns, especially."

There were volunteers for Ron Paul and Hermain Cain working the crowd Monday and Mitt Romney headlined a Tea Party event Sunday night.

She also echoed themes from her speech in Iowa earlier this weekend, where she talked more broadly about the nation’s problems with "crony capitalism," debt, and the “incompetent leadership” of the current president.

“We are telling Washington that my kid is not your ATM,” Palin said. She had earlier told the crowd that it was because of them that the new governing class was sent to Washington, D.C., in 2010.

“I felt I could relate a little to her and I thought the speech was wonderful,” Donna Parenteau, of Goffstown, NH told NBC News following the speech. “And I hope she runs for president.”

But not everyone was convinced.

“I didn’t really hear anything new,” Andy Bridge of Amherst, NH said. “I don’t think Sarah’s positions on budget and deficit issues are much different from the other big candidates or even from democrats,” he told NBC News. Bridge said he likes Governor Palin but will be supporting Ron Paul in the New Hampshire primary.

Palin, NBC News was told, arrived in the Granite State Sunday after running a half-marathon in Iowa under her maiden name. She ate dinner at a local landmark in Manchester, The Puritan Backroom, where she and her husband, Todd, were greeted by a Marine and his bride who came out to take a picture during their wedding reception.

After making speeches in both Iowa and New Hampshire, two early voting states, the question remains as the holiday weekend draws to a close, will she or won’t she? Sarah Palin has indicated her “drop dead” date for a possible presidential announcement is the end of September.

msnbc.com's Carrie Dann

msnbc.com's Carrie Dann

Tea Party activists gather in the shadow of the Capitol to urge budget cuts.

From msnbc.com's Carrie Dann
As budget negotiations continued inside the halls of Congress Thursday, a gathering of Tea Party activists huddled at a cold outdoor rally on Capitol Hill to send a message to the deal-makers inside:

They're ready to pick a fight.

A few hundred people -- far fewer than the massive rallies seen before last year's midterm elections -- who braved the dreary weather urged lawmakers to push deep cuts to the federal budget even if it results in a temporary shuttering of the government, chanting "Cut it or shut it!" and punctuating cheers with calls to "shut it down!"

"If Harry Reid wants a fight, let's give it to him!" said Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), one of a parade of conservative lawmakers who made remarks at the event sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots.

Many of the rally's speakers were careful to note that Democrats are "rooting" for a shutdown and that GOP budget-cutters hope to avoid a funding lapse that would turn off the government's lights.

Democratic leaders "want to turn you into their scapegoats and blame the Tea Party for shutting the government down," said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).

Rep. Allen West (R-FL) declared, "We are not here to talk about shutting the government down... But if you want to talk about shutting down the government, go over there and talk to Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid and the folks at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!"

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) told reporters after his brief remarks to the crowd that a federal closure is undesirable but would not be catastrophic.

"No Republican wants to shut the government down. I don't think anybody here really wants a shutdown," DeMint said, "but we shouldn't be so afraid of a shutdown that we can't make the right decisions right now." He added, "We can't be cowed by this threat."

The preemptive finger-pointing over a potential shutdown likely stems from the scars of the budget fights of the mid-1990s, when the public soured on GOP leaders in the wake of a series of federal closings.

A full federal closure "is not going to be very popular with the American people," warned Clinton-adviser-turned-conservative-commentator Dick Morris, who instead suggested a "targeted shutdown" of agencies -- like the EPA and the National Labor Relations Board -- that are loathed by Tea Party activists.

"We don't have to close down the government. We're going to close down the parts of the government we can't stand!" Morris said.

That sentiment was met with cheers -- as well as a smattering of shouts to "shut it down!"

*** UPDATE *** Here's a dispatch from NBC's Catherine Chomiak:

As the continuing resolution currently funding the government inches closer to its expiration date of April 8, Tea Party activists rallied today for a budget battle. Reps. Steve King (R-IA), Mike Pence (R-IN), Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) fired up the crowd on a dreary day in Washington, D.C., with calls for a fight and threats of a government shutdown.

Congressman Pence, citing the current deficit, debt, and “defiant liberal majority in the Senate” said the time was right “to pick a fight."

“The debt stops here,” he said. “If liberals in the Senate would rather play political games and shut down the government instead of making a small down payment on fiscal discipline and reform, I say, 'Shut it down.'”

Representative and potential Republican presidential candidate Bachmann hit Democrats saying they are hoping for a government shut down. “That’s their plan," Bachmann said. "They want to shut the government down, and they want to turn you into their scapegoat and say, 'It’s the Tea Party’s fault for shutting the government down.'"

Paul urged the Tea Party members to keep up their political involvement. “The fight is just beginning,” he vowed. “Keep their feet to the fire, call them, email them, let them know that you are prepared for America to move forward, but only by balancing the budget and making government smaller.”

In addition to a fight on the budget, King showed support for his fellow House Republican saying, “We need to fight on Mike Pence’s proposal on unfunding (sic) Planned Parenthood… And we need to fight on cutting off the funding that implements Obamacare.” 

Bachmann also got loud cheers from the crowd when she proposed sending “a change of address form to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.”

This is something Bachmann has said before and will probably be said again, as she continues to consider a 2012 presidential bid.