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Newly elected members of Congress are arriving in Washington this weekend for the equivalent of freshman orientation – but which orientation to attend?

There are several different groups competing to shape impressionable minds. And with a heavy Tea Party presence in the incoming class – about 40 new House members are tied to the movement – each orientation is pitching itself as the least establishment of them all, even as they all rely on big establishment names to train the new lawmakers.

Tea Party Patriots, an umbrella group for Tea Party groups across the country, sent out an e-mail blast Thursday afternoon, accusing another organization, the Claremont Institute, of falsely trying to claim to be the “official” orientation for new lawmakers.

Tea Party Patriots had planned an orientation at exactly the same time, and urged its activists to call and e-mail incoming lawmakers to tell them to choose its event over Claremont’s.

“D.C. Insiders Indoctrinating OUR Freshmen,” read the title of the e-mail. “Don’t let them steal OUR new members of Congress.”

“This is our first chance to stand against the status quo,” said the e-mail from Jenny Beth Martin, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. “Let’s show them that you won’t tolerate politics as usual and show them the power of the Tea Party.”

The e-mail said Tea Party Patriots had spent “in excess of a hundred thousand dollars flying in local Tea Party coordinators and arranging the facility for this meeting.” The Patriots mocked the event by Claremont, a California-based group that promotes a return to what it calls the founding principles of the nation; the Patriots said Claremont was being run by lobbyists and “members of The Ruling Class,” and noted that its keynote speaker was Bill Bennett, a former secretary of education and now a prominent pundit in Washington.

Tea Party Patriots, though, will have a keynote address by Edwin Meese III, a former attorney general who also falls under the rough rubric of “D.C. insider.” And its sessions on the Constitution will be taught by an organization founded by Representative John Shadegg, Republican of Arizona, who is retiring after eight terms.

And then there is the retreat today led by FreedomWorks, the Washington group that has helped the Tea Party movement grow, and that is led by Dick Armey, a former Republican House majority leader, lobbyist, and, yes, D.C. insider. About 40 new House members are attending that orientation at the Inner Harbor Hyatt in Baltimore. FreedomWorks was providing new lawmakers with briefing books on policy. The general message from Mr. Armey was: don’t be co-opted by the Establishment. But lawmakers might be forgiven if the lines between establishment and antiestablishment are seeming increasingly unclear.

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The new House leadership position that Republicans created just for freshman will likely inject a Tea Party voice into high-level decision-making as soon as the next Congress convenes.

The two lawmakers vying for the job — Tim Scott of South Carolina and Kristi Noem of South Dakota – rode the Tea Party wave to victory last week and would bring anti-Washington sentiment to an exclusive circle that has never before included rookie members.

In a gesture to the sheer power of such a large freshman class, Minority Leader John Boehner, the presumptive Speaker of the House, announced earlier this week that he would add a 10th member to his elected leadership team just for new a lawmaker. That freshman representative will attend weekly leadership meetings and be involved in policy and legislative decisions.

Either of the two candidates would give the Republican Party a chance to diversify its image.

Mr. Scott, a fiscal conservative who was backed by The Club for Growth, is the first black Republican elected to the House from South Carolina in over a century. Ms. Noem would become the second woman in the 10-member leadership team.

Ms. Noem and Mr. Scott have officially requested to be considered for the job, their spokesmen said on Thursday afternoon.

Though there is no clear front-runner in the contest, senior Republicans seem to be keeping an eye on Mr. Scott, who has already been tapped to represent his class on the 22-member G.O.P. Majority transition team.

On Nov. 17, after a few days of orientation activities in Washington, the 84 newly elected House members will vote for their leadership representative, the same day as the elections for the team’s other nine members.

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