1. People cannot buy tickets to the event because it is limited to 600 people.

Answer before:

      The tickets were originally available through Jan. 4^th, 2010. The deadline was extended to Jan. 19^th, 2010 and the 600 tickets were sold out close to the deadline. The waiting list was over 300 people at the last week of January.

Answer after:

     The event was booked for 600 people by Tea Party Nation. The Opryland Hotel monitored the number of attendees and would not allow any more people to attend under the conditions of their contract. The waiting list when the convention opened was over 500 people. 

2. Tea Party Nation is a “for profit” organization and will make money off of the event.

Answer before:

     This organization was “for profit” since last April. The controversy only started after the event sold out in January. What part of Capitalism don’t you understand? Isn’t this the economic system that we are fighting to keep?

 Answer after:

      The people attacking the organizers had no problem if the event failed and they lost money. The story broke only when the possibility of a profit might be realized.

 3. The media outlets are limited at the convention.

Answer before:

      It is up to the organizers who they want to allow into the event. This is when the “controversy” started.

Answer after:

      The media was everywhere at the convention and the initial delay to their requests was due to volume of media requests coming in from all over the world which overwhelmed the organizers.

 4. Judson Phillips is not defending himself against the personal attacks so they must be true.

Answer before:

       Since I and my wife get personally attacked regularly, I gave him the benefit of the doubt that the attacks may be unfounded. As in the Bible, if you are not being persecuted, you are not doing the work of the Lord.

Answer after:

       The so called “controversy” was barely mentioned. Judson Phillips took the high road at the convention and moved us all forward. Sarah Palin addressed this in her speech. 

5. The Tea Party Convention is getting a large amount of media coverage but the 9/12 March in DC was barely covered.

Answer before:

       The media was reporting on the controversy in an attempt to discredit the event.

Answer after:

       The media coverage was from all over the world. Watch Andrew Breitbart’s speech that addresses this issue very succinctly. It the media in our country knew that the convention would be a success, I guarantee that they would not have shown up.

6. Michele Bachmann cancelled her scheduled appearance.

 Answer before:

       I lost respect for her since she would not honor a commitment.

Answer after:

       Thank you Lord. Her cancellation allowed Andrew Breitbart to speak which was the highlight of the convention for me.

7. The price is too high for people to afford.

Answer before:

        I agree that price was high but it is my decision how I spend my money. Tea Party Nation did provide lower priced alternatives which people were not discussing. 

Answer after:

        This was an incredible bargain. The training sessions, speeches and connections were invaluable.

8. Sarah Palin is going to start a third party.

Answer before:

        I was told that this is not true.

Answer after:

        Watch her speech.

I told people that the success or failure of the convention would be dependent on the people attending it. The patriots in our country did not disappoint us: we are moving forward.

Some comments have come up that I would like to address. Even though Erika Franzi and I conducted two seminars at the convention, neither one of us received any compensation for our time. We also received no discount on our tickets, travel costs, hotel costs or meals. We used personal funds completely for this convention: no Asheville Tea Party or NC Freedom funds were used to subsidize us (or our spouses) in any way. For any other comments, see number 4 above.

Saturday’s session opened with breakfast and a talk from Andrew Breitbart. His talk was the highlight of the convention for me. More Acorn tapes coming: Yes.  Watch his speech online and you will not be disappointed. I talked with him several times and he is a great patriot.

I was asked to be part of a panel to discuss the future of the tea party movement. You can catch this hour long discussion online at C-Span.

The second seminar by Erika Franzi and me on how to unite patriot groups into a national communications grid took the rest of the afternoon. This seminar was requested by the people attending the first one on Friday. The result:  NCFreedom will be teaming up with Tea Party Nation to develop the initial framework for this effort.

Dinner and another talk by Andrew Breitbart and then Sarah Palin.

What’s next? Another convention this July 15th through 17th out west. I think Erika and I are the first confirmed speakers at this convention. I pray that I represented the patriots in North Carolina well. Congratulations to Judson, Sherry, Pam and Clarke on a successful convention.

David DeGerolamo

 They wanted to know more about our structure and future plans. They also wanted to incorporate some of our success into their states and even possibly a national plan. I told them that I could ask Judson Phillips if he could schedule another seminar for us in the afternoon on Saturday since nothing was currently scheduled. After a standing ovation, we answered questions for another half hour in the hallway.

 Another hour later, we were told that we will be doing a three hour breakout session Saturday afternoon to continue our presentation and help organize/coordinate other state organizations.

 If we are lucky, this may be recorded by a network or PJTV.

 David DeGerolamo