This weekend’s Florida Tea Party Convention failed to draw many of the GOP candidates invited to participate: Out of the eight GOP presidential candidates, only Rick Santorum showed up to speak.

Convention organizers invited a slew of speakers to talk about tea party-favored topics, such as Agenda 21 and the supposed “radicalization of Islam” in the U.S., and had scheduled a discussion among GOP presidential candidates. However, only one candidate showed up.

According to the Huffington Post:

Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich all called in and were patched into the venue’s speakers. Portraits of the candidates who called in were splashed on a large screen while they answered questions.

During his question-and-answer session, Santorum made light of his opponents’ absence.

“Since I’m the only one that’s going to be here, I’ll fill up the glass of water so no one else has to take it,” he said in reference to a glass and pitcher laid out only for him. The line elicited laughter and applause from the audience. “You’re welcome,” a happy Santorum said in response.

In a swipe at candidates Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, who neither telephoned in nor appeared in person, cardboard cutouts of the two men were placed on stage and asked questions by the town hall’s moderator.

Ron Paul and Rick Perry did not address the convention in person, over the phone, or in cardboard form.

There was also a low turnout among GOP U.S. Senate candidates, who earlier in the year all made it to a conservative town hall hosted by the Florida Family Policy Council and others.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal reports that Deon Long, Mike McCalister, Ron McNeil, Craig Miller and Marielena Stuart all showed up to speak at the convention. Adam Hasner, Connie Mack and George LeMieux were no-shows.

Other big Florida conservative names were also absent from the convention. Both Gov. Rick Scott and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., declined invitations to the event.

Among the right-wing speakers invited to address the crowd were former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed, anti-Islam blogger Pam Geller and G. Edward Griffin. Griffin is an anti-Federal Reserve, anti-United Nations and anti-communist conspiracy theorist who describes himself as a “life member” of the John Birch Society — a historically infamous anti-communist group. Geller is best known for her blog Atlas Shrugs, which has been described by The New York Times as a “site that attacks Islam with a rhetoric venomous enough that PayPal at one point branded it a hate site.”

The attendance of Geller, and other anti-Islam activists, caught the attention of the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-FL), which said the event would “feature a presentation by anti-Islam extremist Pamela Geller and another Islamophobe.” Bill Warner, CAIR said in a statement, was another featured “anti-Islam activist.” This eventually resulted in a feud between members of CAIR and tea party organizers.

Some are saying the retreat of big names was due the inclusion of speakers such as Geller. On her blog this weekend, Geller claimed that such claims were an example of the media “taking their talking points and their cues from the Muslim Brotherhood, pimping their anti-American hate and spinning it into ‘news reportage.’”

Geller did, though, criticize the GOP candidates who did not show up to the event.

She wrote:

I told the convention, “You dance with the one what brung ya,” and that applies to a lot of the politicians who were absent yesterday: the Tea Party elected them, and if they had any sense of honor, any sense of gratitude to the ones who elected them, they should have been there. Those politicians have the Tea Party to thank for their offices.

The convention was sponsored by Freedom Works, the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, Craig Miller’s U.S. Senate Campaign and the Oath Keepers.

While tea party organizers say it was because CAIR “disrespected” one of its speakers, CAIR members say it was because an event organizer was called out for trying to shut down an upcoming CAIR convention while he was reaching out to the group.

Shibly and Nezar Hazme of CAIR’s Florida chapter tell The Florida Independent that an organizer of the convention, Geoff Ross, had invited Shibly to attend the convention after the group had expressed disappointment over the participation of Pamela Geller.

Geller is best known for her blog Atlas Shrugs, which has been described by The New York Times as a “site that attacks Islam with a rhetoric venomous enough that PayPal at one point branded it a hate site.” The attendance of Geller, and other anti-Islam activists, caught the attention of CAIR.

Ross says he wanted to offer the opportunity to have “both sides” air their views at the convention, and protect the group’s “First Amendment rights.”

However, around the time that Ross extended the invitation to CAIR, he also emailed catering staff at Jungle Island in Miami, asking them to decline to host a CAIR fundraising banquet set for Nov. 12.

This is the email that Ross sent to the vice president of food and beverage at the hotel where CAIR’s event will take place:

It has been brought to my attention that your facility will be hosting a fund raiser for the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Saturday November 12th 2011.

I respectfully request that you cancel this event with CAIR. This is an organization that does not recognize the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution. It has tried numerous times to place political pressure on U.S. politicians by trying to stop them from speaking at various freedom loving Constitutional events across Florida and the United States. This attempt by CAIR to muzzle the 1st Amendment rights of American citizens cannot go unanswered.

Please be advised sir that your facility is now being boycotted and placed off limits by members of my Tea Party Coalition across the state of Florida. This boycott of your facility will be lifted when your event with CAIR is cancelled. Thank you.

Ross admits that he did try to orchestrate a tea party boycott of the hotel in an effort to have the event shut down. However, he claims that happened before he extended the invitation for CAIR to speak.

Shibly and Nezar both say it was immediately after.

“On Oct. 29, Ross sent me an invitation to speak at their event,” Shibly says. “On the very following day, Oct. 30, unbeknownst to me, he emailed the hotel asking them not to host our event.”

Upon hearing this news, Nezar confronted Ross. In an email to Ross, he wrote:

While I am encouraged by your invitation and your commitment to our Constitution, your hypocrisy is troubling. Below is an email you sent to Jungle Island requesting they cancel our event next weekend.

Please help me understand how we can possibly believe one word you tell us.

Ross says he emailed the hotel because he was frustrated with CAIR “putting political pressure on hotels” and trying “to shut down” events that are hosted by people they disagree with. “Sharia law is what they are using to shut us down,” he says.

“If they can’t handle what they dish out,” he says, “then they should pick other tactics.”

Ross claims the main reason he “kicked [CAIR] out of” the Tea Party Convention was because they “disrespected” Geller.

In an email to CAIR’s D.C. headquarters inviting the group to the event, Ross wrote:

Under the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution, The Counsel of American-Islamic  Relations CAIR is very welcome to speak at our State Tea Party Convention  in Daytona Beach this Sunday. The invitation stands. We will protect your rights to speak. We also have the right to protect the 1st Amendment rights of those people you disagree with. Ref: Ms. Pam Geller and Ms. Brigitte Gabriel.

If CAIR chooses to place political pressure on facilities and hotels and to get these said facilities to disinvite speakers that CAIR disagrees with (Ref: Hutton Hotel Nashville) then you are interfering with the Constitutional rights of the American people. This falls in line with Sharia Law. Companies that capitulate to your demands are actually capitulating to Sharia Law. [Emphasis mine.]

A communications person at CAIR D.C. took issue with the accusation that CAIR was responsible for Hutton Hotel severing its contract with an anti-Islam group.

The D.C. communications person responded to the email and asked, “What is your evidence that CAIR contacted the hotel in Nashville?” He added, “Please don’t cite Pam Geller’s unsubstantiated rantings.”

Ross told Sunshine State News that a “CAIR leader in Washington called Geller ‘a ranter’ and ‘a liar,” thus prompting him to disinvite CAIR.

Shibly later learned from a press release that he was no longer invited to the convention.

Ross says he has “never said anything negative about CAIR,” but was just “getting sick and tired of their tactics.”

Shibly tells the Independent that he is not surprised, but is very upset with what has happened. “Apparently free speech is only protected by the tea party if it means inciting hatred against Muslims,” he says. “Free speech used to expose such hatred is unacceptable to them.”

“It just amazes me that they claim to honor the Constitution and freedom of speech so much and criticize us for ‘infringing’ on free speech,” Shibly says, “and yet they do the exact same thing.”

The Tea Party Convention will take place at the Volusia County Ocean Center Nov. 4-6. According to the convention’s website, sponsors of the event include Freedom Works, the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, Craig Miller’s U.S. Senate Campaign and the Oath Keepers.

Both are included as speakers on the current convention agenda, along with a slew of right-wing activists and speakers.

Alex Burgos, Rubio’s communications director, tells The Florida Independent that the senator will not be attending the convention in Daytona Beach.

Scott’s scheduling office also says that “at this time” the event is not on the governor’s “official schedule.”

“Things could change,” a representative says.

The event will feature speakers such as former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed, anti-Islam blogger Pam Geller and G. Edward Griffin. Griffin is an anti-Federal Reserve, anti-United Nations and anti-communist conspiracy theorist who describes himself as a “life member” of the John Birch Society — a historically infamous anti-communist group.

Geller is best known for her blog Atlas Shrugs, which has been described by The New York Times as a “site that attacks Islam with a rhetoric venomous enough that PayPal at one point branded it a hate site.” The attendance of Geller, and other anti-Islam activists, caught the attention of the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-FL).

The group sent out a press release last week thanking Rubio and Scott “for declining to speak at next week’s Florida Tea Party convention.” The group says the event “features a presentation by anti-Islam extremist Pamela Geller and another Islamophobe.”

According to the release:

Along with Geller, the convention features AN anti-Islam activist who goes by the name “Bill Warner.” “Warner” (Bill French) and Geller are identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as members of the “anti-Muslim inner circle.”

“We thank Senator Rubio and Governor Scott for avoiding the false perception that they would in any way legitimize anti-Muslim hatred by appearing at an event featuring hard-core Islamophobes,” said CAIR-Tampa Executive Director Hassan Shibly.

The Tea Party Convention will take place at the Volusia County Ocean Center Nov. 4-6. According to the convention’s website, sponsors of the event include Freedom Works, the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, Craig Miller’s U.S. Senate Campaign and the Oath Keepers.

Organizer Jebb Young addresses conservative activists at the FreedomWorks office (Photo by David Weigel)

Before Ryan Hecker presented the Contract from America to his Sunday night audience — 63 activists huddled inside of a meeting room in the Washington, D.C. office of FreedomWorks — the free-market think tank’s spokesman promised great things.

“You watch,” Adam Brandon told TWI. “This is the idea that’s going to change the election.”

[GOP1] In this room, Hecker, a lawyer and Tea Party activist, had an easy sell. His idea, fleshed out over four months, was to produce an election manifesto along the lines of the Contract with America launched by Republicans shortly before the 1994 elections, or the 1961 Sharon statement drafted by Young Americans for Freedom. First, Tea Party activists — and anyone else who was interested — would submit ideas at the ContractFromAmerica or Spiritof94 websites. Then they’d be whittled down to 50 ideas with an online vote. When he brought the draft contract to this meeting, it was down to 20 user-selected ideas. “I had four ideas,” Hecker chuckled. “None of them made it in here.”

The draft contract was a hit — at first. When FreedomWorks vice president of policy Max Pappas asked what people thought of the name, the dissent started to rumble.

“I just think if there’s anybody who has negative thoughts toward Gingrich or that group,” said Charlotte Fitzgerald, a Maryland activist, “this has associations with that. If you start with a clean slate, you can be more credible to independents.”

Hecker stepped up to explain himself. “My reason for ‘contract’ — maybe it’s just the attorney in me — is that I like the idea that it’s binding. With the Contract with America, a lot of it ended up not being enacted.”

Adam Brandon offered that the “Contract” name would make more sense to Washington politicians. “When I say ‘Contract from America,’ they know exactly what I’m talking about. When I say ‘American Manifesto,’ they say, What’s that?”

“‘American Manifesto’ sounds socialist,” sniffed Lynn Collins, a Delaware activist.

It was a friendly argument that didn’t go off the rails — within a few minutes, activists were voting on which in-progress Contract items they supported. That was business as usual at the Liberty Leadership Summit, an inaugural effort by FreedomWorks to bring together Tea Party activists from state to state to meet, share ideas, and craft an agenda. From Saturday through Monday, 63 activists gathered in the free-market group’s offices to strategize for the 2010 elections, participate in workshops like titles like “What You Can and Can’t Say: How to Stay Out of Jail This Year,” and break occasionally for pizza or Chinese food.

Despite the high level of the discussion — the Contract draft was marked “confidential,” and activists openly debated which incumbents they were ready to challenge in 2010 — FreedomWorks invited reporters inside to see how their movement worked. On Monday morning, the activists would sit down with reporters from The New York Times, CNN and other media outlets to explain who they were and what they were doing. After a year of liberal pundits bashing FreedomWorks as an “astroturf” group and attacking the credibility of Tea Party activists for working with it, the group’s leaders have stopped caring about MSNBC or liberal bloggers attacking them as a force behind a popular anti-government movement.

“We’re the shadowy roots!” laughed Brandon. “What I always tell people is that we’re a service center. There’s only 18 of us. Our model is that we’re going to help you and your network.”

The Liberty Leadership Summit was a perfect demonstration of how FreedomWorks amplifies and aids the work that Tea Party activists already want to do. On their way into the offices for Sunday’s meeting, activists grabbed copies of the latest Cook Political Report rankings of House and Senate races, copies of G. Edward Griffin’s seminal anti-Federal Reserve tome “The Creature from Jekyl Island,” and copies of a memo from Pappas laying out the “fiscal policy outlook” of the coming year. That memo laid out the cases against the Democratic agenda on issues ranging from energy to financial regulation, warning activists against the majority party’s proposals to answer voters’ concerns.

“Bush’s ‘Wall Street Bailout’ was the spark that lit the Tea Party grassfire,” wrote Pappas in a section on financial regulation, “and the Obama administration has so far been successful in continuing to increase the ties between Wall Street and Washington while at the same time demonizing bankers for political gain. This presents a big opportunity for the right to throw off the image of being owned by business interests when what we really support are free markets.”

Some Tea Party activists at the meeting, like Fitzgerald, blanched at the thought of their agenda matching up with the Republican agenda. There was audible grumbling when Hecker announced that Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions was on board with the Contract from America as soon as it was ready to launch — Hecker mollified that by explaining that the group was not “tied” to Gingrich. When Florida activist Robin Stublen worried that Republicans might try and beat Tea Party activists to the punch with their own Contract, Brandon told him not to worry.

“They don’t have the credibility to do that,” Brandon said.

At the same time, in the wake of Scott Brown’s upset victory in the Massachusetts special election — a victory that came after Democrats tried and failed to negatively tie Brown to Tea Parties — activists were thrilled at the prospects of taking down long-serving incumbents. Sketching out the primary and general election calender for 2010, activists speculated that the Florida seat of retiring Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) could be up for grabs, along with the Senate seats held by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and House seats held by Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) and Rep. Michael Mahon (D-N.Y.). Every Democratic committee chairman, they argued, should be looked at for a challenge. According to Virginia activist Lisa Miller, former Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) was talking to Tea Party activists about challenging Perriello, the man who beat him.

When all of this was boiled down, the activists came up with three goals. The first: “No tax & spend incumbent goes unchallenged.” The second: “Take over the Republican Party,” which meant scouting out “strategic opportunities to put fiscal conservatives in the House and Senate.” The third: “Fiscal conservatives will take back the House and Senate.”

If the short debate over the Contract from America did anything, it demonstrated that the Tea Party vision of “fiscal conservatism” is one that Republicans are primed to run on. Asked to vote whether the first batch of possible Contract items were in their “top ten” or “bottom ten,” the activists heavily favored items that promised more government transparency (putting every bill online for seven days before votes) and lower taxes (making the Bush tax cuts permanent and replacing the tax code with one “no longer than 4,543 words — the length of the original Constitution). The transparency item, in particular, sounded like a no-brainer.

“I thought we voted for Obama to do that!” said Everett Wilkinson, a Florida activist.

The less popular items were ones that smacked of federal government intervention in the economy. The group voted down a tight term limits rule, a “Committee on Constitutional Authority” that would rule on whether bills passed muster, and waivers from the EPA “in order to allow states flexibility in establishing environmental priorities.” That prompted activists to argue that they should simply support abolishing the EPA. After no one supported a “corporate welfare commission” to scour wasteful spending, Pennsylvania activist John Stahl suggested that the movement campaign against corporate welfare altogether. And Stahl worried that the Contract was missing a major action item.

“There are assaults underway by the Obama administration, and others, on our Constitutional right to vote,” said Stahl. He rattled off examples — the motor voter law, giving the vote to “anybody who’s on the dole,” amnesty to undocumented immigrants — and argued that it needed to become an issue or there would be “a lot of disappointed people out there.”

“That’s a good point,” said Hecker. “One of the ideas that’s not in this, that was on the site, is an ID for voting.”

By the end of the meeting, Tea Party activists had a handle on the issues they’d demand answers on when politicians got fully into gear. And they’d started to determine how the Tea Parties of 2010 would not merely repeat the ones that broke out in 2009. Arkansas activists, said organizer Jebb Young, would hold a rally on the one-year anniversary of the day Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) called protesters “un-American.” They’d meet and greet legislators when they showed up to the next session. After he described ways for Tea Party activists to show their political heft, New York activist Tom Borrelli argued that the movement needed to pick one major corporation and start a boycott of its products. The dozens of Tea Party activists scribbled down notes.

“I think the people that you see here are going to change the direction of the country this year,” said Brendan Steinhauser, FreedomWorks’ director of federal and state campaigns.

In 2004, when Democrats — rather understandably — were trying to make it hard for Nader to make it onto state ballots, the candidate got unexpected help from Citizens for a Sound Economy — the group that would later split into FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity. In Oregon, one of the states where Nader voters nearly helped throw the election to Bush in 2000, CSE enlisted its volunteers to collect signatures for Nader.

“We saw it as an obvious opportunity to split the liberal base in a swing state,” Matt Kibbe, CSE’s president and CEO told ABC News.

Kibbe said the effort to bolster Nader’s popularity is also part of a plan to force Kerry to compete for liberal votes, thus complicating any efforts to appear more moderate.

Kibbe is now the president of FreedomWorks. Way back in 2004, Howard Dean actually debated Nader about his decision to take this kind of help from conservative activists. It’s an interesting footnote now — probably more interesting than Nader’s predictable backseat whining and scolding.

Young protesters at the April 15 Tea Party in Washington, DC (Photo by: Aaron Wiener)

While South Carolina’s political establishment wrestles with the fate of Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), Ron Parks has already moved on. He’s one of the organizers of a July 4 Tea Party in Charleston, a rally that will celebrate America and protest the way that President Barack Obama is governing it.

“We had 6,000 people show up at the last Tea Party in Charleston, on April 15, when [Gov.] Sanford spoke,” said Parks, a contractor who lost his job earlier this year and quickly found work as a volunteer with the Tea Party movement. “We’re expecting fewer people this time, but I’d love to have to eat my words.”

Image by: Matt Mahurin

With no great fanfare and little national media coverage, the people who organized the April 15 Tea Parties are gearing up for a new day of protests against government spending and higher taxes. Hundreds of rallies will take place, at least one in every state, in public places and in parks rented out for the occasions. Many of the same people are involved. Most of the conservative organizations that aided the last rounds of rallies are on board for the sequel, such as FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity. A proliferation of sites run by those groups and sites run by grassroots activists are pointing curious activists to rallies ranging in size from barbeques to a rally in Dallas that organizer Phillip Dennis promises will be “the biggest Tea Party in the history of Tea Parties.”

In the run-up to the first round of Tea Parties, conservative activists were aided enormously by coverage from Fox News and the endorsements of many Republican stars. Fox News ran dozens of segments about the events, dispatching five of its stars — Sean Hannity, Greta Van Susteren, John Gibson, Glenn Beck, and Neil Cavuto — across the country to cover them live. Newt Gingrich endorsed the events, speaking at a Tea Party in Times Square and dispatching talking points to protesters through his American Solutions organization. Dozens of Republican members of Congress spoke at the events. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele passed up an opportunity to attend a Chicago Tea Party after being denied a speaking slot, but in May he told RNC members that the tide was turning against the Obama administration because “change is being delivered in a tea bag.”

But the collaboration between the official Republican establishment and the Tea Parties has not lasted into June. The RNC has no plans to get involved with any Tea Parties. A spokesman for Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), who jaunted around northern California to attend several Tea Parties, said that his holiday plans were private but would probably not include Tea Parties. Gingrich will not attend any of the Tea Parties, although he recorded video messages for events in Birmingham and Nashville “at the request of the respective organizers,” according to spokesman Dan Kotman.

Media coverage has also gotten a little bit more scarce. Coverage on Fox News has largely been limited to interviews with Tea Party organizers on the network’s morning shows. While sources at Fox would not discuss their plans for covering the weekend events, they confirmed that no anchors would be attending and that the attendance and news value of the events looked to be lower than that of the April rallies. Tea Party organizers are counting, instead, on local news coverage and on distributed reporting such as the conservative news site PajamasTV, which hosts an “American Tea Party” show and has asked readers to submit their own videos from their rallies.

“There are legitimate journalistic reasons for why there’s less coverage this time around,” said Seton Motley, a spokesman for the conservative Media Research Center — a group that blasted CNN and MSNBC personalities for joking about the April 15 Tea Parties. “There aren’t as many rallies this time, and there was a novelty last time that isn’t there now. Also, if you’re talking about the networks that made light of the Tea Parties back in April, they might have realized that opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference.”

According to Jenny Beth Martin, a national organizer of Tea Party Patriots, there are advantages to media hype and to media indifference. In April, when Martin helped organize the Atlanta Tea Party, Sean Hannity asked for, and got, a starring role in the event — a decision that brought national coverage and 20,000 people. “But I couldn’t meet many of those people,” said Martin. “This past Saturday, we had an impromptu rally to protest the cap and trade vote. On the fly, organized with Twitter and Facebook. Only 70 people showed up but I got to speak to everyone and get to know them.” Martin did credit the media attention of April with letting the Tea Party organizers “reach an audience we simply wouldn’t have been able to reach on our own.”

The result of all of this: lower expected attendance, with some of the difference made up by a more celebratory atmosphere. On April 15, the largest Tea Party in Texas was the Fort Worth rally featuring Gov. Rick Perry, who drew days of controversy for apparently endorsing the idea of Texas seceding from the union. The July 4 Dallas Tea Party, by contrast, will combine political speeches from columnist Michelle Malkin, Bosnia war hero Scott O’Grady, and local conservative activists with entertainment from ersatz Monkees drummer and singer Mickey Dolenz, a bluegrass Beatles cover band, and a program that lets kids edit themselves into rock videos (“Be a star — no talent required!”).

“We’re using the fireworks and the Monkees and the rest of that to attract people who never though they’d be at a Tea Party,” explained Phillip Dennis. “This is going to be much more of a celebration than a protest. It’s a celebration of the Declaration of Independence, and it’s going to be our own declaration of independence from an irresponsible government.”

Dennis and the Dallas organizers are hoping for a turnout of 50,000 people, and hoping for it despite a ban on politicians speaking from the stage. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) had asked to come and to sign copies of his new book, but reeled from the restriction; retired Lt. Col. Oliver North pulled out of the event for the same reason. (DeMint will appear at the event in Charleston, the only Republican senator making such an appearance this weekend.) Without Republican politicians getting involved, Tea Party organizers can speak openly about their plans to replace them. Asked what, if any, the political impact of the April 15 events was, Dennis suggested that it was “getting Sen. Arlen Specter out of the closet as a Democrat.”

“I think of the Tea Party Movement as a play in three acts,” said Michael Patrick Leahy, a Nashville activist who has clashed with other Tea Party organizers, but who is speaking at the Dallas event. “Act one was to protest the socialist statism that we don’t believe in. The second act is happening on Saturday when we celebrate the Constitution that we do believe in. The third act will be taking actions to restore limited government.”

Leahy pointed to the more independent, more attention-getting activists as the most likely way that the Tea Parties will evolve. One example: Phil Valentine, a radio host who has launched GivetheSenateSomeBalls.com, a campaign to supplant the tea bags that activists had been sending to Congress with brightly decorated sports balls, using some scatological humor to encourage the upper house to block Democratic plans.

“The idea for the balls campaign came to me as I was sitting around waiting to go on at a Tea Party event this past Monday,” said Valentine. “People are just beginning to send their balls to their senators.”