Controversy Brews Ahead of Tea Party Convention

(Feb. 1) -- One of the organizers of the first National Tea Party Convention is steamed about criticism of this week's event.

Judson and Sherry Phillips, creators of Tea Party Nation, have been under fire for weeks over their convention, which opens Thursday at the Opryland hotel and features Sarah Palin as the keynote speaker at its closing banquet Saturday night. Some former supporters have objected to Palin's speaking fee -- reported to be around $100,000 -- and the $549 price of a convention ticket, saying they run counter to the grassroots nature of the Tea Party movement.

Sherry Phillips fired off a mass e-mail Saturday and posted the message on her husband's blog. She offered explanations for the withdrawal of some sponsoring groups and said two of the movement's GOP heroines in Congress -- Reps. Michele Bachmann and Marsha Blackburn -- backed out because of confusion over ethics rules.

Phillips lashed out at certain former members of her group, saying they'd been "banned ... for reasons running the gamut from antagonism to passing on confidential information." And she denied claims that her husband wants to make big money from the Tea Party movement. Although Tea Party Nation is a for-profit corporation, Phillips said, their plan is for the convention to just break even, with "a few thousand dollars to cover local operating costs."

The dispute over the convention highlights the rifts within the loosely organized movement of small-government, anti-spending activists who staged protests nationwide last year. It comes at a time when more Republicans are trying to cozy up to Tea Partiers, who remain wary of getting too close to the political establishment.

"We think of the Republican Party as being on probation," Dick Armey, a major player in the Tea Party movement, told CBN's David Brody. The former House majority leader said Tea Partiers hope to "rehabilitate and reform" the GOP to make it more like "the party of Reagan."

But in a New York Times interview, Armey warned that Tea Party support for Republicans isn't guaranteed.

"This is not a situation where the grass-roots activists are saying, 'What can we do to make ourselves attractive to the Republicans?' " he said. "It is 'What can we do to help the Republicans understand what they must do to be attractive to us.'"

On the same day Phillips attacked Tea Party Nation critics, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said he was wrong to support Republican Dede Scozzafava against Tea Party-backed Doug Hoffman in last November's special election in New York's 23rd congressional district. "They were right," Gingrich told WNTK radio in New Hampshire.

Although Hoffman ended up losing the New York House race to Democrat Bill Owens, it was one example of the Tea Party's growing influence in elections. The latest was Republican Scott Brown's upset victory in the battle for the Senate seat vacated by the death of Democratic legend Ted Kennedy.

Although Brown got strong Tea Party support, he distanced himself from the movement when Barbara Walters asked him about it Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

"Well, you're making an assumption that the Tea Party movement was influential, and I have to respectfully disagree. It was everybody," Brown said.

Don't look for Senator-elect Brown among the conventioneers in Nashville later this week.