HMM: Sweet Tea for GOP in Alabama. “While last weekend’s Tea Party convention in Nashville was making national headlines, the real political impact of the grassroots movement was evident among Republicans who gathered Friday and Saturday in Montgomery. . . . A native of Trinidad who came to the United States with his parents when he was 8, Phillip could become the first black Republican elected to Congress from the Deep South since Reconstruction. His message of American exceptionalism and limited government draws enthusiastic applause at Tea Party events and has earned the endorsement of Mike Huckabee.”