A group of disgruntled Tennessee Tea Partiers held a guerilla press conference in an adjacent lobby to the National Tea Party Convention here in Nashville this afternoon. Their message was about as organized as the movement itself – proudly “grassroots,” meaning verging on chaos.
“We wanted the average citizen – not politicians or people who can afford this thing – to have a convention,” said Antonio Hinton, a Knoxville Tea Party activist not participating in the convention. “I wish we could afford it. We would love it if they would come and work with us.”
So was protesting the convention cost the point of their press conference? After all, few could afford the $549 fee to attend the three-day shebang organized by Judson and Sherry Phillips of the Nashville Tea Party – under a for-profit banner than irked many other Tea Partiers and politicians such as Reps. Michele Bachmann and Marsha Blackburn, both of whom withdrew as speakers. Um, not quite, after all, they’re pro-capitalism, too. “The Tea Party organization from across the state and met with Phillips and asked him to expand this venue so that the average citizen could attend and we were told that we didn’t have the same vision and values and that he wanted to keep it elite,” says Andrew Shreeve, an Eastern Tennessee activist. Shreeve said he had an e-mail to prove this allegation, but when asked he referred reporters to a Politico reporter whom was nowhere to be found.
So, it’s about elitism – top down versus bottom up? Kinda. “Yesterday, Judson Phillips said that when he’s done here he’ll unify the Tea Party movement in Tennessee and we’re here to tell him that it’s already unified. We were first state in nation to form a statewide tea party on January 23 and we represent 34 or the state’s 44 Tea Parties,” Hinton said.
So are they the real grassroots Tea Party movement? “We didn’t say that,” Schreeve said. “These are people just like us – they’re concerned about the country. We’re not here to criticize the people in that room or the sponsors or anybody like that – we’re just here to let the media know the Tea Party movement in Tennessee is unified.”
All of the speeches this week, and most activists when you ask them say they want to keep the movement grassroots – no formal leaders or organizing. “The tea party movement has no leader, and let me tell you something, neither did the American revolution,” Phil Valentino, a talk radio host who spoke just before Sarah Palin, said to raucous cheers from the crowd of 1,000+. If today proved anything, they’re getting their wish.