Who are the prominent movers and shakers at the Tea Party convention? The Daily Beast reports:
As with all pre-game press, there’s plenty of hype that offers more heat than light. There have been last minute injuries and substitutions—wingnut Rep. Michele Bachmann dropped out from her long promised speaking role, while Sarah Palin has stuck with her $100,000 speaking fee and been rewarded with prime-time speech coverage from cable outlets during the Saturday night banquet. There is plenty of second guessing and insider scandals—the convention’s for-profit status has rubbed many grassroots activists the wrong way. They see themselves as defenders of the American Revolution, and this twist has some asking whether John Hancock would have rented out Independence Hall and tried to make money off the concessions.
Read who the five most important speakers will be at the Party here.
Be sure also to catch The New Yorker‘s excellent coverage of the grassroots side of the phenomenon in Ben McGrath’s recent piece. I discuss the Tea Party movement as a nonviolent campaign at Waging Nonviolence, and Scott Korb treats it as a return of puritanism at The Revealer.