(Image source: Red Dog Report)

BY VICTORIA CRAIG

ANCHOR ANA COMPAIN-ROMERO

You're watching multisource politics video news analysis from Newsy. 

As he campaigns for the GOP presidential nomination, Mitt Romney walks a conservative line. After all, before he hit the campaign trail, Romney was a red-seat governor in a very blue Massachusetts. 

“I’m a conservative businessman..” FLASH “I don’t like the massive federal spending. I don’t like the power grab from states.” FLASH “Obamacare is bad law constitutionally, it’s bad policy.”

As he dukes it out with fellow front runner Rick Perry-- he’s seeking some new supporters -- The Tea Party.  But, is his rhetoric enough to win over the GOP faction?

“Feeling the heat, Mr. Romney is reworking his schedule to put himself before tea-party audiences this weekend in South Carolina and New Hampshire, appearing at events he had once planned to bypass and before a wing of the GOP he has so far, largely shunned.”

Even with this latest schedule adjustment, CNN reports at least one group isn’t happy with Romney’s shifting focus and first-time Tea Party appearance.
 
“ National tea party sponsor FreedomWorks announced Wednesday it will protest Mitt Romney's debut ...The group accused the Republican presidential candidate of suddenly ‘pandering’ to conservative activists ‘because he's getting challenged from [Minnesota Rep. Michele] Bachmann and [Texas Gov. Rick] Perry...’”

But Levi Russell of the Tea Party Express calls the protest a silly political stunt saying:

“The Tea Party Express trusts the ability of tea party members to evaluate candidates and issues, and make up their own minds…we don’t think it’s right to tell the tea party [who] they can and can’t listen to. A top down isolationist approach isn’t constructive to the political process.”

But what’s behind the shift? Freedom Works president, Matt Kibbe, explains on CNN.

“I think he's been standoffish up until now and suddenly he's in trouble with the polls and wants to create this perception. (FLASH) It's about Mitt Romney's record, particularly on health care, on regulation of carbon, on wall street bailouts. He's been wrong on the key issues that tea partiers."

While Romney may continue to court the Tea Party, Politico’s Jim VandeHeri (VAND - HI) says the former Massachusetts governor will continue his approach of lying low, raising money, and waiting for debates.

“I don’t think he’s going to adjust that strategy much in the next couple of months. He is going to start doing more events. He is probably going to start taking a sharper edge in some of these debates, but do not expect a radical makeover for the Mitt Romney campaign.”

Romney's camp says the schedule changes are not part of a panic due to Perry's rise in the polls.

Transcript by Newsy.