(CNN) - A leader in the Tea Party movement will take part in what's being billed as the "first annual national convention" for the Coffee Party.
Billed by many as a progressive answer to the much larger conservative Tea Party movement, the Coffee Party was born on Facebook at the beginning of the year. The group became popular online - it has nearly 300,000 Facebook fans - and has held numerous gatherings across the country this year.
In an email release, the group announced that its convention will be held September 24-26 in Louisville, Kentucky, and will feature a panel discussion of transpartisan issues. Among those on the panel will be Tea Party Express chairperson Amy Kremer. The Tea Party Express is one of the best known national Tea Party organizations.
"Earlier this year, we declined most of the invitations we received to appear with Tea Party leaders," said Coffee Party co-founder Annabel Park. "We felt the Coffee Party needed to go through an internal process first. Now that we've done that, we are eager to engage with the Tea Party, and help to move America's civic discourse beyond the narrow confines of partisanship."
Billed by many as an answer to the conservative Tea Party movement, the Coffee Party was born on Facebook just six weeks ago. While the group has become an instant hit online - it boasts more than 141,000 Facebook fans as of Saturday - gauging the success of this weekend's coffee meetups was predicted to be an indicator of the group's strength.
A statement released by the party said "today's coffee houses have been a huge success - both for Coffee Party USA and for democracy. All across the U.S., Americans from all political sides sat down for civil conversation and, of course, coffee."
Washington (CNN) – Will the Coffee Party rise to the scale of the Tea Party movement? Saturday is the first big test in attempting to answer that question.
Leaders of the fledgling movement say they plan to hold some 350 to 400 events across the country. While the Coffee Party has become an instant hit online, gauging the success of Saturday's coast to coast coffee parties could be an indicator of the group's strength.
The founder of the new Coffee Party movement says "we need to wake up and work hard to get our government to represent us."
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Washington (CNN) – The founder of the new Coffee Party movement says "we need to wake up and work hard to get our government to represent us."
Angry at what she perceived as media overexposure of the conservative Tea Party movement, Annabel Park, a 41-year-old Washington-area area documentary filmmaker, used her Facebook page to call for a Coffee Party.
Friends started replying, and replying and replying. Park then set up a fan page called "Join the Coffee Party Movement." A flood ensued and now Park has approximately 68,000 fans, most of them coming in the last five days following articles about the Coffee Party in the Washington Post and New York Times.
So what's her goal?
"Just like in the American Revolution, we are looking for real representation right now. We don't feel represented by our government right now and we don't really feel represented well by the media either," Park said Wednesday on CNN's American Morning. "It's kind of a simple call to action for people to wake up and take control over their future and demand representation. And it requires people standing up and speaking up."
Sound familiar? Tea Party activists use much of the same language in describing their year-old anti-big government movement.
From CNN Politics
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