There's absolutely no doubt that the four-day extravaganza that will take place officially six days from now in Tampa is really about one thing, and one thing only — selling Mitt Romney to the American public as somebody they can envision as the next president of the United States.
The four-day sell begins Monday night, which now all the major broadcast networks have announced they will not televise, meaning you'll have to go to C-SPAN or PBS to watch Rick Scott speak around 8 p.m.
Conservative pundits (such as Fred Barnes in today's Wall Street Journal) are beside themselves in ecstasy about Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate. But it will come down to whether the American public feels good enough about Romney on a basic, emotional level to support his candidacy as a way to change the current economic situation in this country.
To that end the Republican National Committee is going all out in terms of the physical production with this convention, as reporters learned yesterday at a news conference inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum. Folks, this isn't your parents' GOP — there will be a rock band performing at different times inside the hall, for one thing.
Can a slickly produced convention/show move the meter significantly? The fact is there's less time for a traditional "bounce" from this convention, since the Dems meet up in Charlotte just days later.
As mentioned above, Rick Scott will be among the speakers inside the Times Forum on Monday night, but the headline speaker will be Mittens' better half, Ann.
Last night national leaders with the activist group Food Not Bombs dropped their flag in Tampa's Voice of Freedom Park. Leaders said one reason they chose to come to Tampa (in addition to the city hosting the convention) was the fact that it has such a lousy reputation for its dealings with the homeless.
This article appears in Aug 16-22, 2012.