They've been dismissed as the inconsequential, angry, funny-hat-wearing political fringe. But conservatives and Tea Party activists at lively celebrations in the Bay Area say they're beginning to be recognized as something else as the 2012 elections loom: a mainstream movement.

With two big gatherings - a California Young Republican Federation convention in San Francisco on Friday and a Tea Party Express gathering in Napa on Saturday - it wasn't so lonely being a conservative in the Democratic bastion of the Bay Area.

"We're not afraid to come to the Bay Area, because the majority of the people in the Bay Area agree with us," said Sal Russo, the Sacramento GOP political consultant and father to the Tea Party Express movement, which kicked off its fifth cross-country bus tour Saturday.

Looking out on a field of hundreds of picnicking Tea Party activists at the Napa Valley Expo - many of them holding signs blasting bloated government, high taxes and skyrocketing debt - Russo said the armies of just regular people represent "the zeitgeist of the times."

The Napa site bloomed with signs, bumper stickers and buttons that reflected discontent with the country's direction: "My shovel is ready: where is my job?," "RU seeing RED yet?" and "Stop socialism."

Shaping presidential race

Once dismissed as "AstroTurf" - a term of derision meant to cast doubt on the grassroots claims of its adherents - the Tea Partiers have proved to be an enduring movement that reshaped Congress in the 2010 elections and already has been a force for both candidates and themes in the 2012 GOP presidential field, Russo said.

The Tea Party Express, for example, will for the first time sponsor a major presidential debate, a Sept. 12 event in Florida to be broadcast on CNN.

"It's not about social issues. It's just about how we don't want to spend more than we actually have," said Joyce Ellis, 57, of Walnut Creek, a former production manager and a member of the East Bay Tea Party Express. She said when she joined the movement, "I thought I'd be the only one. ... I saw I wasn't."

In San Francisco, where more than three times as many voters (30 percent) decline to state a party preference as register as Republicans (9 percent), a statewide convention of 300 California Young Republican Federation members gathered to hear a trio of conservative stars, UC Berkeley law Professor John Yoo, author Ann Coulter and blogger Andrew Breitbart.

With President Obama's approval rating dipping to around 44 percent nationally and a slew of fired-up GOP presidential candidates challenging him, even Bay Area conservatives are feeling a surge of confidence.

But first, as Breitbart said, "They need to meet each other."

"Wherever the liberal beast exists, there's a sense of fear among conservatives that they'll be outed. This is a unique moment for people to say, 'The hell with it.' The country is going to hell in a handbasket, and the progressive, silver-haired, ponytailed politics doesn't work," Breitbart said in an interview.

In both crowds, the mood was ebullient among conservatives.

"The movement is maturing," Amy Kremer, a former flight attendant who is chair of the Tea Party Express, said as she prepared to address the Napa crowd. Hundreds sat in lawn chairs, listening to country singers, rappers and comedians, all with a conservative bent.

Dems protest Tea Partiers

While Democrats have long railed against the Tea Party movement, she said, "we are the biggest threat to the Republican Party, because we want them to be conservative - and we will shine a light on them."

Still, Democrats are not surrendering any ground. On Saturday, dozens of lively protesters showed up in Napa, joined by a giant blow-up "Corporate Rat," chanting "Tax the Rich!" and wielding signs that said "Yes on good wine; no on bad tea!"

And in San Francisco at the Young Republicans gathering, UC Berkeley law Professor Yoo - who wrote legal memos authorizing waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques when he worked in the Justice Department of the George W. Bush administration - was the target of two dozen demonstrators calling him a "war criminal."

Inside, Yoo shrugged them off, calling them "my entourage."

"Any Republican that can survive in the Bay Area or Berkeley and even California ... are going to be the few, the proud - but they are going to be the best warriors for the conservative movement," he said.

One Young Republican, 27-year-old Alameda resident Andrea Newman, said she feels "optimistic in a way that I didn't four years ago. It's getting more comfortable to say 'I'm a conservative' in conversation."

"Obama has been great for us - a lot of young Republicans are finding each other," said Matthew Del Carlo, a 34-year-old native San Franciscan who directed the California Young Republican Federation convention in his native city.

Sally Zelikovsky, founder of Bay Area Tea Party Patriots, said she believes that the movement's message is summed up in her best-selling T-shirt: "Hope you like the change."