The National Tea Party Convention isn’t just about spreading the gospel of fiscal conservatism and figuring out ways to crush President Obama in 2012. For some, it’s a chance to get in on the ground floor of what may be a tea party market.
Take Jeffrey McQueen. A former auto industry worker out of Michigan, he was laid off last year. “Sometimes God has other plans for us,” he said as he got settled at the convention in Nashville Thursday.
McQueen ended up designing a flag to represent the tea party movement. He says he’s sold 5,000 since June and word of the product is “spreading from porch to porch.”
McQueen is part of a mini-economy that’s started to sprout up around the conservative tea party movement. And that economy is out in full force at the first-ever convention.
In between costumed tea party “delegates,” the politicians and pundits looking to create some kind of synergy out of the whole thing and the event organizers are tea party peddlers, whose stalls line the entrance to the convention ballroom in Nashville.
They’ve got flags, they’ve got T-shirts, they’ve got DVDs, they’ve got jewelry – all designed with tea party buyers in mind.
McQueen, who is involved with the tea party movement in Michigan, got some attention to his flags when, on a bit of a whim, he took them to Massachusetts as he followed Sen. Scott Brown around on the last leg of his successful campaign for Senate.
“I sold 350 of ‘em in three days,” he said.
Then there’s Tea Party Emporium, a New York company that sells “freedom tea,” “freedom coffee,” and most curiously, tiny tea bag pendants.
“The Republicans have their elephant. The Democrats have their donkey. And the tea partiers needed their emblem,” said Natalie Humphrey, marketing director for the company, which sends part of its proceeds to the conservative Heritage Foundation.
The Tea Party Convention is sponsored in part by the Tea Party Emporium, along with dozens of other organizations. The for-profit side and grassroots activist side are closely intertwined in Nashville.
On the first night, convention-goers watched a screening of “Tea Party: The Documentary Film,” while executive producer Luke Livingston stood outside selling DVDs at a discounted $15 apiece.
“It’s gonna sell like crazy,” he said. Livingston said he’s already sold 5,000.
But the producer, who put up $20,000 to make the film, said the documentary serves a purpose. He said it helps refute the “angry mob label” and offers buyers something they can take to show their families what they’re involved in.
“The film doesn’t hammer Obama. It’s not a hit piece. It’s inspirational,” he said.