As Tea Party Nation prepares for their first national convention in Nashville next month, charges of profiteering are fracturing its solidarity. Several member activists have quit the group to protest founder Judson Phillips' decision to establish the group as a for-profit company, while the party's former webmaster has charged that big-name Republicans are co-opting the movement's ideas and momentum to help them in this year's elections. Is the Tea Party movement being exploited?
Profiteers are hijacking the Tea Party: "Tea partiers hate the GOP establishment and its Wall Street allies," says Frank Rich in The New York Times, but that's not stopping Republican "buckrakers" like Michael Steele and Sarah Palin from desperately hitching themselves to the Tea Party wagon. Meanwhile, the Tea Party convention, a "profit-seeking affair" with $560 tickets, "is almost as shameless as Glenn Beck, [who recently hawked] gold coins merchandised by a sponsor of his radio show."
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