Corvallis woman attends Coffee Party convention in Kentucky

EUGENE, Ore. - A grassroots political group that started on Facebook held a national convention over the weekend in Louisville, Kentucky.

One of the people at that Coffee Party convention was a woman from Corvallis.

Barbara Bull is a stay-at-home mother of 3 who learned about the Coffee Party on Facebook.

She said the postings were interesting and she wanted to learn more. When asked to describe the Coffee Party, Bull said it is a lot of things.

"But the first thing is it's not supposed to be the same thing as the Tea Party," she said, "and I think after I read a little bit about it and understood that I was more interested."

She was interested enough to buy a plane ticket to Louisville to check it out.

"I was feeling a little crazy for going," she said, "and I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know what it would be like, I didn't know if there would be thousands of people, I didn't know if there would be 10 people."

She said she also didn't know what the people would be like. There were a few hundred people at the convention. Bull said they were from across the political spectrum.

She said the discussions at the meetings were thrilling.

"It's about the approach where the goal is to sit and talk to people about what you agree about," she said, "and what you don't agree about and then figure out what's a good solution to the problem."

The co-founder of the Coffee Party, Annabel Park, said it all started when she posted comments on her Facebook page about the divisiveness of the Tea Party.

She estimates the site has almost 300,000 fans.

"Just like in the American revolution, we're looking for real representation," Park said. "We don't feel represented by our government right now."

The Coffee Party is hoping people like Barbara Bull of Corvallis will help them grow. She said she can see herself eventually taking on a larger roll.

"I think first I'm just going to contact my friends around the region on Facebook and e-mail and say, look this is exciting for me, I think it would be exciting for you," she said.

The Coffee Party got it's start on Facebook about 9 months ago.