The Republican Party now has control of the Tampa Bay Times Forum, and doesn't plan on relinquishing it until they nominate their candidate for president at the end of next month.
The home of the National Hockey League's Tampa Bay Lightning franchise began being transformed on Sunday into the site of this year's Republican National Convention, where Mitt Romney will accept the nomination of his party for president in 46 days. Between 200-300 people will work on converting the arena for the convention, and the total cost of the whole party will be around $20 million, said convention COO Michael Miller.
At a news conference on Monday afternoon Miller informed the local media about the details of the transformation, which includes removing around 3,000 seats that will be put in storage, as well as improving the acoustics (at a cost of $400,000) and adding an additional two megawatts of electrical capacity.
Although Ken Jones from the Host Committee frequently says that his committee's not political but simply to put on an event that showcases Tampa Bay, that attitude is not where Reince Priebus is all about.
The Chairman of the Republican National Committee has two main jobs - raising money, and being top cheerleader in charge. Under that role, that means he's all about bashing Barack Obama, which he did in spades on Monday afternoon.
