Sarah Palin Tea Party Speech | Palin Tea Party | Sarah Palin Tea Party. Reporting from Nashville – Fired up by two days of political networking and conservative talking points, small-government advocates at the National Tea Party Convention were primed Saturday to hear from their most high-profile political ally, Sarah Palin.

Roughly 1,100 people were expected to attend the keynote address by the former Alaska governor, who increasingly has attached her image and political future to the Web-driven, sometimes-fractured tea party movement. Each paid more than $300 to attend her speech.

“People are as anxious here for her to show as they are in Louisiana for the Saints to play,” said Glen Williams of Winsboro, La. “It’s going to explode in there.”

In recent months, Palin has positioned herself outside the Republican Party establishment that chose her as its vice presidential candidate almost two years ago. She passed on an invitation to attend the annual Conservative Political Action Conference and agreed to speak at the Nashville event.

Palin also has said she would attend two upcoming tea party events: a rally next month in Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s hometown of Searchlight, Nev., and an April get-together in Boston. Both gatherings are being organized by the Sacramento-based Tea Party Express.

Palin remained committed to the Nashville conference even after some tea party groups questioned its financing and accused the Tea Party Nation, which organized the event, of profiteering. A handful of sponsors pulled out of the event citing the hefty price tag of $560 for a ticket to the full convention.

Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) backed out over concerns that they might later run into trouble with the House Ethics Committee.

And the price kept some devoted fans from seeing Palin — but it did not keep them from trying.

Merle Firestone got up at 4 a.m., left a note on the coffee pot for his wife and drove from Rainbow, Miss., to try to see the former governor, even though he could not afford the ticket. The 72-year-old retired small business owner and bow-hunter said he particularly liked Palin’s support for his sport. He said he had been following the tea party movement as he watched his friends and children struggle with the recession.

“I don’t have any answers, I just want people to get back to work,” he said, standing by as conventioneers went in and out of the hall in the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. When Firestone tried to get in without a pass, he was turned away. But, he said, there were plenty of like-minded people to chat with in the hallways.

The roughly 600 people who attended the full convention were overwhelmingly white, older and disproportionately from neighboring states. They seemed united in their opposition to the growth of government and their belief that President Obama’s policies represent a dangerous creep of socialism into American life. They also were united in plans to turn what began as a protest movement into a political force for conservative candidates in the midterm election.

Still, many resisted the suggestion that they would unite under leadership from Palin or any other figure.

“I don’t think the tea party movement has a leader,” said Charlene Miller of Cincinnati. “That’s not what this is about. She embodies the spirit of the tea party movement.”

That model — a series of local groups linked online — has led to some disagreements over direction.

Tea party leaders in Washington have sought to downplay some of the controversial messages that popped up at early rallies. But some of those were spotlighted again in Nashville.

On Friday, Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily.com spent much of his address questioning whether the president was born in the United States. On Thursday, former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) told the audience that Obama was elected by people “who could not spell the word ‘vote’ or say it in English.”

But there was criticism from within the movement on Saturday, focused on convention organizer Judson Phillips of the Tea Party Nation.

Members of a group feuding with Phillips held a news conference outside the convention hall, at which they dismissed the event as lacking true local support.

“There’s top-down leadership and there’s grass-roots organization,” said Anthony Shreeve of the Tennessee Tea Party Coalition, holding a copy of his group’s charter — printed on yellowed paper with an ornate font reminiscent of the U.S. Constitution.

Phillips, a Nashville attorney who has been active in local Republican politics, said he did not expect to make much money off the convention and that any profit “would probably go back into future events to further the cause.” Another convention is planned for July, he said.

Palin has suggested the same. In a opinion piece published recently in USA Today, she said she would put her speaker’s fee — which sources put at more than $100,000 — back to “the cause.”