Brown election marks tea party moment

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- The U.S. Senate election of Republican Scott Brown marks a big moment for the grassroots conservatives of the tea party movement, backers say.

The election of Brown, whose anti-big government message and opposition to Democrats' healthcare reform plans carried him to victory in liberal Massachusetts, has helped turn tea party backers from a ragtag group of right-wing activists to an organized force, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

"The movement rallied around the idea of defying the establishment," Eric Odom, founder of the tea party network American Liberty Alliance, told the newspaper. "This had far less to do with Scott Brown and far more to do with proving we could coordinate and act in a mass way, showing we could move political mountains."

But, the newspaper said, infighting is still common among tea party activists. In recent weeks they have clashed over an attempt to organize a national convention in Nashville, while in Florida, movement leaders have accused a lawyer of hijacking their movement.

The organizer of the convention, Judson Phillips, told the Times, "The people who are involved in this movement, one of the constants is they really don't like authority that much."