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Both speeches completely failed to sell Mitt Romney.
The logistics alone are a huge pain at the Republican National Convention. You have to walk miles out of your way to get around barriers blocking the streets of Tampa. Cops -- on horseback, on bicycles, and in full riot gear -- are generally quite friendly -- reluctant enforcers of this insane military lockdown. "I can get you to Disney, no problem," one officer from Orlando told me, apologetically, after the street closures made getting away from the convention center complex a maddening journey through a nearly impenetrable maze.
Inside the convention hall, things weren't much better.
The most dramatic event of the day was the near rebellion by the Ron Paul delegates, outraged over Mitt Romney's power grab in the rules committee. Henceforth, the party's nominee will decide which delegates are seated -- effectively disenfranchising future grassroots movement candidates like Paul.
I missed the shouting and booing on the convention floor (which spawned an online rumor that the Texas delegates were shouting down a Puerto Rican delegate because of her race -- they weren't), but was accosted outside the hall by an angry Ron Paul backer who demanded of me and the ever-genteel E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, "Are you delegates? Are you on the rules committee?"
E.J., true to form, found the one kind, gentle, bipartisan event at the whole convention: a forum hosted by Mike Huckabee on funding for the arts.
Yankees star Bernie Williams played the guitar and artsy Republicans, including Gov. Gary Herbert of Utah and Mayor Scott Smith of Mesa, Arizona, defended not only public funding for the arts but holding back the budget axe on art and music for public school children. Imagine!
When Huckabee asked the panelists what art, music, or literary work they'd take to a desert island, the list of favorites dampened the good Republicans-for-art vibe a bit: Dolly Parton, John Phillip Sousa, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Bernie Williams saved the day with his pick: Miles Davis.
We left after Williams played a Latin jazz version of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."
The entertainment value of the convention was all downhill from there.
By now you've heard Lane Turner's catchy country version of "I Built It," ("with my own two working hands ... with no help from Uncle Sam.")
The speakers all beat on the same theme.
The only dramatic departure from script came when Ann Romney gave a speech she declared was all about love, and Chris Christie announced right afterward, "Tonight, we choose respect over love."
Both speeches completely failed to sell Mitt Romney.
Besides her strange "I love women!" outburst (that ought to close the gender gap), Ann Romney spent a long, awkward portion of her speech discussing other people's economic struggles.
In the last year and a half, she said, she's "heard these stories about how hard it is to get ahead." Wow.
Oh, and Scott Walker bombed.
He got the biggest reception of the night up until that point when he came on stage -- a standing ovation, befitting a rock star. Then he rushed through his lines and left the stage abruptly to tepid applause. It was weird.
On to Day Two.
The Republicans have nowhere to go but up.
Ruth Conniff is the political editor of The Progressive and a contributor to Isthmus. She is in Tampa covering the Republican National Convention.
