Exclusive to the LEHIGH ACRES GAZETTE
by: Dick Allen, Political Analyst, of Chicago, IL
With the banging of the gavel promptly at 2 PM Tuesday afternoon the 40th Republican National Convention was REALLY called to order!
I found myself surrounded by more than 1500 credentialed news media people from all over the world! Television, radio, newspapers of all kinds, and here I was consulting for an online newspaper called the LEHIGH ACRES GAZETTE, wherever and whatever that was. Well, I found out that Mitt Romney had actually already visited this small community In Southwest Florida during the foreclosure crisis. I say small, however the publisher told me Lehigh had 85,000 residents, and last month The Gazette was viewed nearly one million times! So, being impressed, I took the assignment. A Chicago political analyst coming to Florida to cover the National Republican Convention, I simply couldn’t pass this up!
First, some convention facts. Florida has hosted the RNC three times in the past with the most recent being 1972 in Miami Beach. It’s expected that more than 50,000 people will participate before the convention is over with delegates attending from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and 5 U.S. territories. The Tampa Bay Times Forum can seat 20,000 people, there will be 4411 delegates, and as I mentioned earlier 15,000 credentialed Media Representatives will be roaming all over.
And now for the Gazette’s readers my first installment:
The afternoon session was filled with a large number of great one-liners from people I hardly have ever heard about. This made me really anticipate the evening session with speakers that I knew something about. Sharon Day, Co-Chair RNC Called November’s election “The most important election of our Country’s lifetime!” A unique perspective indeed. I Missed Who said that Obama had never made a payroll, made a budget, ran a company, or even seen the inside of a lemonade stand. I’ll watch the TV replays for this one as it brought the house down! The theme of this session Was We Build It. Speaker after speaker built on this theme. We can do better was repeated hundreds of times. “Our only HOPE is to CHANGE” said the U.S. Rep.from SC Tim Scott, while he dedicated a song to our President as he sang to the delegates “Hit the road Jack. Don’t you come back no more, no more, no more”.
Things were moving along as swiftly as the script called for until Mike Duncan, chairman, of the Committee on Credentials gave his report. And then it happened. All the love and harmony suddenly turned into controversy. It seems too many of the delegates that I talked to were upset over the fact that not all of the states were getting all of their delegates certified. On the floor, the vote to except the Committee report sounded like it didn’t pass. My colleagues in the balcony told me the vote sounded too close to call. However, the chair ruled that it had passed which quickly brought about much unrest. For nearly 30 minutes speakers were interrupted with shouts of “point of order” while Speaker John Bonner simply was deaf to their cries. But he wasn’t deaf enough to ask them to be courteous to the following speakers, he just couldn’t hear their cries for a “point of order” to be called. The of power of the gavel is tremendous thing!
Piece subsided as the official convention photograph was taken. Unfortunately I’m not in it, or maybe that’s me, the tiny dot on the very top left corner of the photograph. In any event I’m showing it to my wife and telling her that is me and I just didn’t go to Florida to get a suntan…thank you hurricane Ivan!
Nominating speeches followed with the Honorable John Sununu from New Hampshire, Barbara Comstock from Virginia, and Ron Kaufman an adviser to the Romney Campaign and Mitt Romney’s brother.
The official roll call of states followed. Alabama touted three national football championships then voted for Romney. Governor Brewer Of Arizona received a standing ovation when she introduced herself as the head of their delegation, then she cast their votes for Romney. California voted all of its hundred 172 Delegates for Romney, While Idaho boasted about being the first state to sue over Obamacare cast all of their votes for Romney. Minnesota and Nevada were the only states casting more votes for Rand Paul than for Romney. New Jersey hand the privilege of casting 50 votes for Romney putting the vote total “over the top” thus assuring that Romney would be the official candidate of the Republican Party. As if there was any doubt, Speaker Bonner announced a total of 2061 votes for Romney and no other vote totals were given as the floor erupted with cheering, music, singing, and dancing.
The Vice President nomination sailed through in less than five minutes, and once again the convention floor erupted.
I was then moved by a young black lady named Mia Love who is the mayor of Saratoga Springs, UT and a candidate for Senate there. I understood if she gets elected she would become the first black woman senator In Washington D.C.. You’ll undoubtedly see and here her on television as she blew the delegates away and I am certain her future is bright in the Republican Party. After a couple videos, and a couple more speakers, the afternoon session ended. The delegates were told to take the next 45 minutes off ….as the evening session would start at 7:15 PM. Good luck!
See you then!