PHOENIX, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- About 2,000 Tea Party activists are in Phoenix this weekend charting a strategy to get the government headed in the direction they desire.
One of them, attorney Mark Meckler, who helped form the Tea Party Patriots, cited a three priorities he wants to see lawmakers embrace: "Fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets," the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.
"Politicians are a fungible commodity," Meckler said. "We are going to have to remove a lot of the politicians in order to fix what's wrong with the country."
The Tea Party members also heard from two Republicans who would like to be the next occupant of the White House -- Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, and Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor.
"The Constitution was not written to limit freedom; it was written to limit government," Pawlenty told them, adding the "ridiculous federal tax code" be thrown out.
Things got a little heated outside the convention center where the Tea Party, KNXV-TV, Phoenix, reported. A verbal confrontation broke out when some Tea Party members offered tickets to Iraq to members of a group called The End of War Coalition who were calling for the end of funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
