Weigel

Casino, Stiffed by Cancelled Tea Party Convention, Wants Its Money Back

Ah, Judson Phillips. This blog has previously asked and answered a question: Is the affable leader of Tea Party Nation a real Tea Party player, or is he just a quotable guy who can fill out reporters’ stories and TV bookers’ segments about What The Tea Party Thinks? (See here.)

We have more evidence for the second answer.

On Monday Venetian Casino Resort, LLC., filed suit against Tea Party Nation Corporation of Franklin, Tenn., alleging the group owes $642,144 for canceling a conservative conclave last year.

The event, which had been scheduled for July 14-18, 2010, was first postponed until October and ultimately canceled… According to a contract attached to the complaint, the reservation included an agreement by Tea Party Nation to pay the resort $579,148 in the event of a cancellation, of which the resort alleges the group still owes $554,148. An 18 percent interest charge added $87,996 to the amount the resort wants to collect.

Judson Phillps didn’t talk to the Las Vegas Review-Journal about that story, and according to the Tea Party Nation site, he’s moved on.

Upon final approval of this strategic new location by our funders and convention board. We’ll be unveiling an amazing, technology-based strategy for hunting RINOs and defeating Democrats in 2012, starting with this fall’s Tea Party National Convention.

But Phillips tells me that Tea Party Nation’s activity is independent from the next convention, which has attracted a broader group of organizers. “I have been asked to be the chairman of the convention,” he says. “Tea Party Nation is not the group that is putting the next convention on.”