For a movement famed for making a racket, the Tea Party has been all but silent in this election. Can they unite in time to prevent Mitt Romney from getting to the White House?
A leading organiser of the Tea Party, Joe Dugan, could barely conceal his irritation. When asked by a reporter "Where has the Tea Party gone?"
Dugan, waving his hands around to show the hundreds attending the South Carolina Tea Party convention earlier this week, retorted: "Does this look like the Tea Party is finished? This is not a wake. This is a celebration."
In spite of his protestations, the Tea Party has been largely invisible in the 2012 Republican presidential race. One of the largest groups in the movement, the Tea Party Patriots, is co-sponsoring with CNN the final televised presidential debate on Thursday before Saturday's South Carolina primary.
But the noise and energy associated with the Tea Party since it exploded on to the US political scene three years has been stilled, overshadowed in recent months by the youthful enthusiasm of the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
The silence of the Tea Party prompted the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, in a television interview on Sunday, to say: "I think the Tea Party is dying out." He attributed this to the seeming improvement in the economy.
But it is not the economy that is the problem for the Tea Party. It is divisions within the populist movement, its inability to agree on a candidate to support for the Republican nomination. They can agree on who they do not want: Mitt Romney, viewed as too moderate, suspect on cutting federal spending and on health care reform. But they cannot on agree on an alternative to unite behind to stop him.
The problem is evident at the South Carolina Tea Party convention, held at a beachside hotel at the Myrtle Beach resort. There were about 500 people present, mainly white and elderly, representing 22 groups from across the state, including Americans Have Had Enough, the Campaign for Liberty, the Carolina Patriots, the Student Tea Party of the University of South Carolina, and 'We The People' Goose Creek 912.
During breaks, members stood on the hotel balconies, overlooking the beach, hollering abuse at a handful of Occupy protesters standing in the sand. Inside, the convention there was little abuse but lots of tension.
One of the most contentious moments of the two-day convention came when Michael George, who represents the Dallas-based Strong America Now, a Tea Party group, spoke from the podium with gory pictures projected on to a screen behind him of a hunter standing in blood surrounded by dead seals. The captions read: "If the seals had joined [together], they could kill the hunter. They were divided and the hunter clubbed each to death. The Tea Party must join behind one candidate or Romney will win the nomination and Obama will win."
Speaking afterwards, George said: "If the Tea Party does not coalesce round one candidate – be it Newt Gingrich or someone else – then Mitt Romney will win the Repubican nomination and we will lose the general election.
"He [Romney] can't energise the Tea Party. We need one million Tea Party members out on the streets to campaign to counter the 1 million labour people who will be out for Obama."
Saturday's South Carolina primary might be the last chance to stop Romney.
"If we have any chance at all, it is in South Carolina," George said.
While on the stage, George suggested former House speaker Gingrich as the candidate to unite behind – and for that, he was heckled. "Outrageous", shouted one member amid the uproar, angry not at the prospect of Gingrich but over George advocating support for an individual candidate.
One of those upset with George, Kathleen Shea, 63, a dental hygienist and a member of the Bluffton Tea Party, said: "We are the Tea Party. He can't tell us who to vote for. I can't believe they let this man up there."
She holds to the view that Tea Party members are individuals, with no leaders, and are not part of the Republican party and should not be in the business of endorsing anyone.
The problem with this view, though widely held in the Tea Party, is that it has proved to be a fiction in the past. The Tea Party worked vigorously during the 2010 congressional elections to support conservatives against moderates in Republican primaries across the country, with Tea Party favourite Sarah Palin dispensing endorsements from the Alaska fastness. And they largely succeeded, though some of their choices proved disastrous, such as Christine "I am not a witch" O'Donnell.
If the Tea Party was prepared to try to change the composition of congressional Republicans, why is it standing back from ensuring that a candidate closer to them than Romney is selected for the biggest prize of all?
Answer: they cannot agree on an anti-Romney candidate. There was pizza mogul Herman Cain, a Tea Party favourite who departed the race in December, and another favourite Michele Bachmann, whose campaign failed to catch in Iowa earlier this month and is out, too.
That leaves Gingrich, former senator Rick Santorum and Texas congressman Ron Paul. The remaining candidate, Texas governor Rick Perry, is seldom mentioned and is likely to drop out of the race after the South Carolina primary.
Dugan, 66, state co-ordinator for the South Carolina Patriots and organiser of the convention, said he had duct tape over his mouth until the convention was over and then he would be campaigning for Gingrich. He also likes Santorum.
"To me, the best thing would be to hear that Rick Santorum would be on the Gingrich-Santorum ticket. That would change the dynamic overnight. Romney would be out of the picture. And they would go on to win the nomination and the election," Dugan said.
Shea, though she objected to being told by George who to vote for, disclosed that she is backing Paul.
Kate Keep, 64, a travel consultant and head of the Hilton Head Island Tea Party, said her group, about 100-strong, had held a poll the week before Cain quit the race. Cain came top but Romney came in "pretty low". Her preference is for Santorum, and after that Paul or Gingrich.
Romney was invited to the convention but turned it down. Gingrich and Santorum both spoke, and received standing ovations. Paul was to appear but failed to, citing a scheduling clash.
The rifts and indecision go all the way to the top. The South Carolina senator Jim DeMint, the godfather of the Tea Party movement, has withheld his endorsement and even criticised Gingrich for attacking Romney over his record at Bain Capital, which invested in companies and laid off tens of thousands of workers. The governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, elected with the help of the Tea Party movement and until a few weeks ago one of its favourites, is campaigning alongside Romney, to the disgust of some within the movement.
The hope of the Democratic party is that lack of enthusiasm in the Tea Party movement for Romney will mean they will not campaign for him in the general election. But, judging from the opinions of those at the convention, that is a hope unlikely to be fulfilled. They say they will be out, as they were in 2010, trying to reshape Congress and, even if they do not like Romney much, they are unanimous in declaring him better than Obama.
Congressman Tim Scott, another Tea Party favourite and one of the few African Americans in the movement, laughed at the idea that the Tea Party was in terminal decline. "In 2010 you started to hear a lot about the Tea Party, and in 2012 you will hear a lot about the Tea Party.
"Once we have our candidate we will rally behind him because we realise what is at stake."