The National Tea Party Convention isn\u2019t just about spreading the gospel of fiscal conservatism and figuring out ways to crush President Obama in 2012. For some, it\u2019s a chance to get in on the ground floor of what may be a tea party market.<\/p>\n
Take Jeffrey McQueen. A former auto industry worker out of Michigan, he was laid off last year. \u201cSometimes God has other plans for us,\u201d he said as he got settled at the convention in Nashville Thursday.<\/p>\n
McQueen ended up designing a flag to represent the tea party movement. He says he\u2019s sold 5,000 since June and word of the product is \u201cspreading from porch to porch.\u201d<\/p>\n
McQueen is part of a mini-economy that\u2019s started to sprout up around the conservative tea party movement. And that economy is out in full force at the first-ever convention.<\/p>\n
In between costumed tea party \u201cdelegates,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve got flags, they\u2019ve got T-shirts, they\u2019ve got DVDs, they\u2019ve got jewelry \u2013 all designed with tea party buyers in mind.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sold 350 of \u2018em in three days,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s Tea Party Emporium, a New York company that sells \u201cfreedom tea,\u201d \u201cfreedom coffee,\u201d and most curiously, tiny tea bag pendants.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Republicans have their elephant. The Democrats have their donkey. And the tea partiers needed their emblem,\u201d said Natalie Humphrey, marketing director for the company, which sends part of its proceeds to the conservative Heritage Foundation.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
On the first night, convention-goers watched a screening of \u201cTea Party: The Documentary Film,\u201d while executive producer Luke Livingston stood outside selling DVDs at a discounted $15 apiece.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s gonna sell like crazy,\u201d he said. Livingston said he\u2019s already sold 5,000.<\/p>\n
But the producer, who put up $20,000 to make the film, said the documentary serves a purpose. He said it helps refute the \u201cangry mob label\u201d and offers buyers something they can take to show their families what they\u2019re involved in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe film doesn\u2019t hammer Obama. It\u2019s not a hit piece. It\u2019s inspirational,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The National Tea Party Convention isn\u2019t just about spreading the gospel of fiscal conservatism and figuring out ways to crush President Obama in 2012. For some, it\u2019s 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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5227,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5227"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}