Tea Partiers Meet to Rally for the Future

Feb. 5, 2010— -- Nearly 600 conservative activists, members of the new and growing Tea Party, have come together in Nashville, Tenn., for the first ever National Tea Party Convention.

Many say they are angry at all politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, and are here to network and plan for the future.

They are focused on the nuts and bolts of politics, like voter registration, and there is a tone of anger and confrontation.

"You know what we're here for?" said one woman speaking to the crowd. "A little bit of R and R, for Revival and Revolt!"

These delegates hope that their movement can make a real impact on politics, and they think they've got the momentum they need to pull it off.

"I'm excited," said Tim Peak, a Phoenix, Ariz., charter school director. "It's the first time in a long time that I've had some hope for some kind of reversal in our national policies."

Catherine Tenek of Suffolk County, N.Y., is a self-described "everyday blue-collar worker" who operates heavy machinery and forklifts for a living. She couldn't pay her own way here so fellow members of the Suffolk County 9/12 Project raised money to send her on their behalf. "I'm here to learn how to organize for America," she said, but added, "the conservative way."

The convention's first speaker, former Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado said that people who voted for Barack Obama could not pass a basic civics literacy test. "People who would not even spell the word vote or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House...named Barack Hussein Obama," he said.

Yes, that's right. The president is a socialist, his supporters illiterate.

Today, Tancredo stood by his comments. "These people didn't have the slightest idea about what America is all about, about the Constitution," he said. "And they went and voted!"

The leader of the Tea Party convention, Judson Phillips, had no problem with it, either. "I think what Tom Tancredo was saying, he thinks a lot of people really didn't understand what they were voting for when they voted for Barack Obama," adding, "He did a fantastic job, didn't he?"