Welcome to the TEA Party
COOPER: Welcome to the TEA Party: our in-depth look at the grassroots movement aiming to make its influence felt in the midterm elections and beyond certainly. TEA Party activists holding their first ever convention in Nashville; Sarah Palin, as you probably know, is the keynote speaker tomorrow night. In his kickoff speech former U.S. Representative tom Tancredo tossed a huge helping red meat to the attendees. Take a look.</s>TOM TANCREDO, FORMER GOP CONGRESSMAN: People who could not even spell the word "vote" or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama.</s>COOPER: He spoke out against John McCain. So who exactly were those words aimed at? Remember, the movement is made up of hundreds of very diverse groups. Not everyone in the TEA Party coalition cheered that speech. We'll take a closer look at the reaction ahead. But first, Randi Kaye takes an inside look at the convention to meet some of the members.</s>RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you listen closely to the TEA Partiers here in Nashville you'll hear a buzz word on everyone's lips; the word, constitution.</s>VIVIENNE PORTER, WILL COUNTY TEA PARTY ALLIANCE: The Constitution is what this country is about. We have a national government that does not believe in the Constitution and would like to shred it and I'd like to see us stick to it. That means smaller government, lower taxes and individual freedom.</s>KAYE (on camera): Tell me what your shirt says.</s>JACK SMITH, TEA PARTY MEMBER: It says "We are tea'd. Keep the pot boiling. We're taxed enough already."</s>KAYE: So what is the answer? What are you trying to accomplish here?</s>SMITH: What we're trying to do is get conservative constitutional individuals into office that will reduce the size of government. Get our people self-sufficient again and move forward so that governments do not take all of our money and overspend it on things that they constitutionally have no right to be spending it on.</s>KAYE: How are you?</s>WILLIAM TEMPLE, TEA PARTY MEMBER: Good.</s>KAYE: I'm Randi Kaye with CNN. What's your name?</s>TEMPLE: William Temple.</s>KAYE: William.</s>TEMPLE: I'm from Brunswick, Georgia.</s>KAYE: You even have your teapot there.</s>TEMPLE: Oh yes.</s>KAYE: What do you think about the TEA Party movement?</s>TEMPLE: We're kicking butt. That's American vernacular.</s>KAYE: What are the values that you stand for?</s>TEMPLE: We're for limited government and the Constitution. It's very simple, four pages. Not 1,800 like the last health care bill. And we didn't need lawyers to interpret it.</s>KAYE: I hear a lot about how the federal government is violating the Constitution.</s>TEMPLE: They are.</s>KAYE: I hear a lot of TEA Partiers say that.</s>TEMPLE: Oh, yes.</s>KAYE (voice-over): If Constitution is the most popular word around here, freedom runs a close second. (on camera): TEA Partiers talk a lot about freedom. Here at the convention you can actually buy what they call an icon of freedom. They're selling jewelry, necklaces, in fact, that are tea bags. It can be yours for about 90 bucks. That's just a fraction of the $550 price tag for a ticket to this convention.</s>PORTER: I'd spend more to bring my country back.</s>KAYE: What is so important about change to you to pay that money?</s>SMITH: The capitalistic side of our country is under attack, it seems. There's a socialization afoot that I'm just not in favor of.</s>KAYE: Do you believe the people and the states are being overregulated?</s>SMITH: Oh, absolutely. There's no doubt about that.</s>KAYE: In what way?</s>SMITH: Just from seat belts, seat belt laws to environmental things and everything in between.</s>KAYE (voice-over): There are 600 people registered here with crowds expected to reach 1,000 for former governor and TEA Party favorite Sarah Palin's speech Saturday. Her message of a big government that's spending too much strikes a chord.</s>SMITH: The federal government is not supposed to be this all- encompassing welfare state. It is supposed to be small and serve the states and serve the people.</s>TEMPLE: We want the department of education, labor, energy, all of these shut down. Their money sent back to the states so the states don't have to come hat in hand to the federal government and say, "Could you give us some of our money back?"</s>KAYE (on camera): The overall message here, "Give me my country back." A battle cry from the average Joe who feels he hasn't had a voice in Washington and has finally figured out how to be heard. Randi Kaye, CNN, Nashville.</s>COOPER: The TEA Party movement is just a year old; still finding its way. In a recent CNN Opinion Research poll a third of respondents said they have a favorable opinion of the TEA Party movement. Just over a quarter had an unfavorable view. Forty percent weren't sure; they said they didn't have enough information or know enough about it. So many Americans seem to be reserving judgment for now or waiting to learn more, I suppose. Meantime inside the TEA Party there's plenty of "Raw Politics" to toss around. Joining me from the convention, John Avlon, columnist for the dailybeast.com and author of "Wingnuts: How the lunatic fringe is hijacking America" and Eric Erickson, editor and chief for redstate.com. Guys, thanks for being with us. John, first I want to go over with you a couple of, you know -- it's a leaderless movement and a lot of the members of the TEA Party like to say that. There's not one leader of the movement but there are people who are popular within the movement. Let's talk about a couple of them. Tom Tancredo who had the opening night speech.</s>JOHN AVLON, COLUMNIST, DAILYBEAST.COM: Yes, I mean, one man's red meat is another man's raw sewage. And I think last night's speech was ugly. It didn't go over as big in the crowd as some people at home might think. I think it is a consensus. His statement about Barack Obama being a socialist is close to conventional wisdom here. What's interesting is Tancredo hasn't been that much a factor in TEA Parties to date. He's known primarily as an anti-illegal immigrant activist and that hasn't been a force animating the TEA Party so far this year.</s>COOPER: What about Michele Bachmann? She actually had to pulled out of the convention a few days ago; relatively new to national politics but certainly very popular.</s>AVLON: Yes. I mean, Michele Bachmann really has turned herself into an icon for the TEA Party movement. First, rising to prominence in '08 when she questioned whether or not Barack Obama was anti-American. And the criticism that came on made her if anything more beloved by the base. She's had a whole string of howlers this year, statements about wondering whether -- questioning the census, calling Americorps -- raising the specter of re-education camps. But every time she makes statements that to some folks sound extreme, she becomes even more beloved by the base and see her as sort of a truth teller.</s>COOPER: And clearly Sarah Palin is extraordinarily popular.</s>AVLON: Of course. Queen of the conservative populist; she's the headliner here. Everyone's talking about her. They're waiting for the big speech. They feel like there's a huge amount of validation that she's coming to speak to them. And I'd say even -- really the onus is on her though. I think it's a question of what kind of speech is she going to give tomorrow night as she's trying to surf this wave? Can she really capture it and crystallize it? She's got the crowd on her side. But can she really make a forceful case she understands and can lead a movement that fundamentally is skeptical about leaders in Washington?</s>COOPER: Eric, from redstate.com, you've been pretty critical of this event. Have you changed your mind?</s>ERIC ERICKSON, REDSTATE.COM: You know, the more I've looked into it I felt like originally this was a lot of people taking advantage of TEA Party activists and their money. Sending up a for-profit saying the money was going to go to an as yet to be created 527. The more I've talked to people who were involved with it; it looks more like it's the case of the dog that actually did catch the car. The guys who -- they didn't expect it to take off like this. They had no idea what they were doing. So it looks suspicious the way things happened. I have my reservations about it. I don't want to be vocal here and be precedent less people think I'm endorsing the TEA Party convention. I have concerns. But it really does look more like it was guys who had no idea what they were getting themselves into and the thing just took off.</s>COOPER: What's so interesting to me about this movement is the diversity of the people in it and yet, clearly, you know, fiscal conservatives, smaller government, you hear that over and over, the constitution. Where does the movement go? I mean, all movements grow and evolve and certainly the TEA Party has exploded over the last year, but where -- what is the next chapter for it, Eric?</s>ERICKSON: You know, I really think the TEA Party movement exists in the absence of leadership. A lot of the TEA Party activists, Democrats, Republicans and independents, they feel like the Republicans betrayed them in 2008 with TARP, the bank bailouts. They feel like Barack Obama and the Democrats have made it even worse. They don't have a natural leader who will try to pull the government back to small government. We saw the clip from Randi about the guy wanting to shut down major departments within the education. That's not exactly the view that most TEA Party activists have, but they do have a lot of concern about small government. Once a leader steps up, whether Republican or Democrat and really endorses their issues about restraining spending, not putting a debt burden on these people's grandchildren, I think the TEA Party movement by and large will have run its course.</s>COOPER: Because once -- it's one thing to have a movement of protests and anger, but once you actually kind of link to a party it then changes and other people, I mean, it can't be such a broad movement once it starts to kind of specifically have leaders or supporters. Am I wrong? Eric?</s>ERICK: No. I think you're absolutely right. What we're seeing is that the TEA Party movement having had some general successes is really focused on cleaning up the Republican Party, which by and large these activists feel like George Bush and a lot of Republicans in Washington betrayed them. They don't like Mitch McConnell, the leader in the senate. They feel like he capitulates when he shouldn't.</s>COOPER: By cleaning up, by the way, you mean bringing back to a conservative core?</s>ERICKSON: You know, yes conservative core, but really the issues aren't social conservatism. They're fiscal conservatism.</s>COOPER: Right.</s>ERICKSON: These guys look at the Republicans who drafted the TARP legislation and see that as a betrayal. Now they have the bank bailouts, the automotive bailouts. They really want people whether Democrat or Republican to fight for them. And Republicans tend to be the small government party allegedly. These people want to get rid of the allegedly and make it a fact.</s>COOPER: Interesting. Eric Erickson. We have to leave it there, John Avlon as well. We're going to have more coverage, of course, all weekend from the TEA Party convention. In a moment James Carville will join us with a special tour around New Orleans in advance of this Sunday's Super Bowl. He and his wife Mary will show us their New Orleans. They live there. Win or lose New Orleans will be celebrating, throwing a parade for their team which has really helped rally and revive the city. We'll be right back.