Look out Opryland, the tea partiers are coming to town.
The Tea Party Nation is gearing up for its first ever convention, to be held at the famed Opryland Hotel in Nashville next month. It’s a confab designed to help the tea parties from across the country organize, with an agenda that sounds a lot like an attempt to form an official third party.
Organizers ask for local groups to “select their best to meet with their peers from across the nation” and who “have the most desire to move this process of organizing to the next level.”
They’ll have a workshop about “the importance of becoming Precinct Committee Chairs.”
“Please join us, make and form strong bonds, network, and make plans for action. We are doing what we could not do alone, to preserve that which we value,” organizers write.
As we’ve reported, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is the keynoter for the Feb. 4-6 event, and Rep. Michele Bachmann will be the highlight luncheon speaker.
But we took a look at the Tea Party Nation’s lineup of participants and some of them are quite interesting.
Among them is the Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore, who also is running for governor of Alabama.
Speakers include World Net Daily’s Joseph Farah and Fox News Contributor Angela McGlowan.
Missing from the list are members of Congress besides Bachmann and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), which is not surprising since the tea party movement is growing in part because of anti-establishment sentiment.
We are keeping a close eye on the tea party primaries percolating around the country, with candidates identifying with the movement to challenge incumbent or Washington-supported Republicans.
The group bills itself as “a user-driven group of like-minded people who desire our God given Individual Freedoms which were written out by the Founding Fathers.”
“We believe in Limited Government, Free Speech, the 2nd Amendment, our Military, Secure Borders and our Country!” they write in advertising the convention.
They also note the Tea Party Express “will be rolling in and joining us for the convention.”
Tickets range from $349 to $549 per person.
Also in February the American Conservative Union will host the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. In April, the 2012 presidential contenders will appear at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans.
Late Update: Tea Party Nation emailed members soon after our post was published saying they had banned MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow from their site. Read about that here.
