"You're from the mountains of North Carolina? We have a second home in the mountains of North Carolina," effused Herselie DuValle Hendrix, a retired personnel manager from Crestview, Fla., while standing in line Thursday, Feb. 4, to register for the first National Tea Party Convention. And right there, you knew that this was no ordinary gathering of grass-roots activists.

The convention in Nashville has taken a beating for more than a month from other Tea Party groups and some Republican leaders for charging a $549 registration fee plus airfare and hotel. Two groups, the American Liberty Alliance and the National Precinct Alliance, are boycotting the meetings. And Representatives Michele Bachmann and Marsha Blackburn withdrew from speaking over concerns from the House Ethics Committee about members supporting a commercial venture -- a taboo under House rules. "I spoke to Marsha yesterday, and she wishes that she weren't getting mixed signals from the House Ethics Committee," says Mark Skoda, a Memphis Tea Party activist who has become the convention's unofficial spokesman.

Nashville Tea Party leaders Judson and Sherry Phillips, who organized the event, have made no secret of the fact that their group, Tea Party Nation, is a for-profit organization. But they argue that any profits are given back to the cause. "I don't run around in a sack," says Skoda, in a tan sports jacket, a black turtleneck and black slacks. "It's a misnomer that in order to be a grass-roots activist, you have to be a pauper."