Things can get awkward when protesters have to put down their placards and tackle the business of building an organization -- networking online and recruiting reliable volunteers, precinct captains and even candidates. The transition is even more uncomfortable when undertaken in the glare of the national media spotlight, as the national tea-party movement attempted to do at its first convention, held in Tennessee over the weekend.

As with any protest movement, consensus proved elusive in two days of debate, but they seemed to agree on five key points:

1. Don't Tread on Me
The tea-party folks are innately suspicious of any institutions. "Keep the change ... I'll keep my freedom, my guns and my money!" read a T-shirt for sale in the lobby. The very term national convention might imply the existence of a leadership, but the activists proudly insist that there is none. "I'm a facilitator; we don't have leaders," one lady told TIME when asked if she heads her local tea-party chapter. "We're all equal in this movement."

In a panel discussion on "Where the Tea Party Goes from Here," Memphis tea-party organizer and convention spokesman Mark Skoda urged delegates to raise the tone of their protests and to avoid unnecessary name-calling of elected officials, including Democrats. "Do not discount the fact that they are still Americans," Skoda said. "Have to have some empathy for that without degrading their noble desire to serve."

"But, wait," a woman in the audience piped up, sounding flabbergasted. "I agree with you, Mark, but some of these guys are a lost cause." Skoda quickly agreed that, indeed, many members of Congress had to go. "Do not ever believe that you are below anybody in elected office," he added.