From Feb. 4-6, the Tea Party Nation Corporation held the first National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. Featuring Sarah Palin as keynote speaker, speeches were held on topics such as “Emergency Preparedness,” “How to Organize a Tea Party Group,” “How to Involve Youth in the Conservative Movement,” and “5 Easy Fixes to the High Cost of Mass Immigration.”The Tea Party Convention was meant to be a national event for the growing Tea Party movement. Founded in April 2009, the movement coalesced around opposition to big government, Barack Obama, his healthcare reforms and stimulus package.

First-year Dustin Flanary, co-founder of the Guilford College Republicans club, believes that the platform of the Tea Party movement overlaps with the platform of the Republican Party.

“As far as less taxation, as far as smaller government, getting back to the morals that the founders of the country wrote the constitution on, a lot of those things Republicans definitely can relate with,” said Flanary. “But I also feel that the presentation can give them less validity.”

Fox News has been a notable news outlet that regularly promoted and covered the group’s early protests. In a Fox News interview, Tea Party Organizer Judson Phillips revealed the reasons for holding a convention.

“We wanted the opportunity for activists from across the country to get together, to be able to network, get to know each other, exchange ideas,” said Phillips, “We wanted activists also to learn some techniques that would work because everybody in the Tea Party is all new at this, and we’re just learning every time we do this.”

“We have this upset attitude, from the general American public, whether they’re liberal, conservative, moderate, independent, or libertarian,” said Zak Wear, a junior political science major and organizer of the Guilford College Democrats. Wear feels that the Tea Party movement represents a manifestation of this frustration, but also feels that the movement has lost its original integrity.

“What I’m particularly disappointed with is how this movement seems to have been unduly influenced or hijacked by a lot of the typical institutional interests that they are trying to be against,” said Wear.

Some Tea Partiers feel the same way. According to a blog post on the Al Jazeera news network’s web site, the cost of attending the convention, $550 for two days, has angered some Tea Partiers who feel that it is “against the grass-roots nature of their movement.” The blog post also commented on the demographics of the attendees.

“This is very much a white, middle-aged gathering,” it stated.

Wear feels that this may be an important time for the Tea Party movement, and like many Tea Partiers, questions the role of the convention organizers.

“Once you start getting centralized, it’s always curious who claims the right to take that centralization,” said Wear.