Palin star of controversial Tea Party
SMU Political Science Professor Cal Jillson talks about the Tea Party convention.
DALLAS (Reuters) - The first national Tea Party convention meets this week to take aim at all the raucous movement says is wrong with Washington and Sarah Palin, darling of America's conservatives, will help lead the charge.
Tea partiers grabbed headlines last year with often highly charged protests against President Barack Obama's healthcare reform drive, his $787 billion economic stimulus package and other aspects of his agenda.
The movement takes its name from the historic protest against British taxation, the Boston Tea Party, one of the triggers of the American revolution against colonial rule.
Organization for the convention in Nashville has been plagued by in-fighting, pullouts and criticism of an attendance cost of more than $500 and a glitzy dinner that evokes Wall Street rather than Main Street. . .
"It is inherently difficult to organize libertarians, which most of the Tea Partiers are," said Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
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