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MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. The past year has not been kind to the tea party: Its most prized candidates were crushed in primary elections to establishment-backed foes, then it watched in dismay earlier this month as conservatives in Congress failed to block John Boehner from another term as House speaker.

Five years into its existence, the tea party is a movement adrift, interviews with conservative activists at this weekends South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention show. Its members are at odds over what went wrong in the 2014 election and on how to move forward in 2016; theres even disagreement over how to define success. Is it enough to nudge the Republican Party to the right, as it has indisputably done, even if its candidates lose to people backed by the party establishment?

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Perhaps, suggested Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.)., the tea partys recent struggles are just the nature of a sprawling, loosely defined grass-roots effort.

The tea party gets [factionalized] in primaries a lot because the tea party is just really a large group of average Americans who believe in limited government, free markets and are frustrated with Big Government, said Duncan, a member of the House Tea Party Caucus who was first elected during the 2010 tea party wave election.

Hundreds of those average Americans milled about a spartan convention center on the beach here over the three-day conference, participating in activist trainings and hobnobbing with lawmakers and notables. A anti-Common Core booth featuring an image of a rotten apple was particularly popular. The event also drew potential 2016 contenders to this early voting presidential state, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), former Sen. Rick Santorum and neurosurgeon-turned-conservative-activist Ben Carson.

The confab unfolded following a recent early test of the tea partys clout in the new Congress: Earlier this month, Boehner (R-Ohio) was reelected speaker after a surprisingly large but still insufficient number of conservatives voted against him. Activists at the conference were outraged but disagreed on how to handle the defectors. Threaten another primary? Let them off with a warning?

Im furious about Boehner, said Joe Dugan, who organized the conference. Absolutely furious. Im extremely surprised, Im extremely disappointed [but] I dont know what promises Boehner made. Rather than berate, Im going to watch a lot more carefully.

He added that tea party allies who backed Boehner will have to prove themselves to him all over again.

Roger Keyser, 70, suggested that in theory, the tea party should be more forgiving of disagreements within its ranks. But voting for Boehner? There was no excuse for that one, Keyser said.

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Tea party reeling