Five Lessons from the Tea-Party Convention

Things can get awkward when protesters have to put down their placards and tackle the business of building an organization — networking online and recruiting reliable volunteers, precinct captains and even candidates. The transition is even more uncomfortable when undertaken in the glare of the national media spotlight, as the national tea-party movement attempted to do at its first convention, held in Tennessee over the weekend. As with any protest movement, consensus proved elusive in two days of debate, but they seemed to agree on five key points...read more