Excitement Builds in Nashville for Sarah Palin Speech

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On the second day of the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, the excitement in the city famous for country music is building for political rock star Sarah Palin's keynote address to the gathering on day three:

Mark Skoda, convention spokesman and founder of the Memphis Tea Party, said on Thursday that 600 people have registered for the conference, with 1,100 signed up to hear Saturday night keynote speaker Sarah Palin.

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Of all the themes that cut through the first day of the convention, several are readily apparent and one is clearly at the top... Sarah Palin is the star of this party. She is everywhere, including -- if you count a life-size cardboard cutout -- in the trio of backup singers for opening-night entertainment Ray ("Ahab the Arab") Stevens. (The video of his "We the People," about health-care reform, has attracted more than 2.5 million views on YouTube.) Conservative singer Lisa Mei Norton, in her Sarah song, belted out her praise for "a shining light on the right the left just doesn't get."

Former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo was here to support Tea Party activists, part of what he called "the most important political movement in the United States since the Civil War," and encourage them to take over the Republican Party. The party is "ripe for it," he said. He decried "the cult of multiculturalism, as threatening as the fiscal crisis we face." (When he said that because Europe has given up, America is the "last best hope for Western civilization," the three German reporters taking down every word didn't blink.) But Tancredo's eyes truly lit up when he talked about Palin, "the only reason I voted for the ticket" in 2008. "She's a really, really pretty Margaret Thatcher."

The more she is criticized, the more she is loved. William Temple, dressed and accented as Button Gwinnett, a Georgia signer of the Declaration of Independence, said "the two best men in the Republican Party are women," Palin and Bachmann. He wants her to speak in Brunswick, Ga., but the vice president of the Golden Isles Tea Party will have to stand in line.

Gov. Palin's convention speech is scheduled for 8PM (7PM Texas Time) Saturday night. It will be cablecast live by Fox News Channel and cable outlets CNN and C-SPAN. The address will also be webcast on PJTV, which is live streaming the convention here.

Update: Jim Hoft is in Nashville, and he's covering the National Tea Party Convention at Gateway Pundit.

- JP