The GOP Convention -- Tuesday

It was an interesting evening in Tampa on Tuesday. The highlight for me was the speech by Ann Romney. While watching Mrs. Romney, I was struck by how brave this woman is. She has had multiple sclerosis for many years. At one point she was nearly unable to walk, but she worked her way back using equine therapy. We recently learned that during the primaries, Ann Romney started to get an flareup of the disease. She just kept going. Fortunately, the flare subsided. As if that was not enough, a few years ago, she was afflicted with breast cancer. But there she was in Tampa. She spoke brightly and cheerfully and from the heart. I think she reached millions of people across America.

The keynote address by Chris Chistie was also masterful. The pundits criticize it for not mentioning Romney enough, but the speech certainly spoke to me. Christie laid out the Republican vision for the future. The GOP will deal with the nations problems rather than follow the Democrat practice of hiding the problems or, if that fails, blaming someone else for them. The issue, Christie properly points out, is what we do now, not how did we get here.

Two other speeches also merit mention. Nicky Haley of South Carolina was particularly effective at pointing out how president Obama has spent four years fighting with American business rather than helping it to thrive. There is no valid answer to this charge from the Obamacrats. Artur Davis, former congressman from Alabama, also spoke powerfully. Davis is a former Democrat who delivered one of the seconding speeches for Obama four years ago. He made clear that after watching Obama in action for four years, he could no longer support Obama. It was eye opening stuff.

I also did my usual of flipping from channel to channel to compare the coverage. It was fun to watch the MSNBC crowd try to do instant rebuttals to what was said at the podium. It never fails to amaze me just how idiotic Chris Matthews really is. I also thought that Fox News had a real coup in getting Peggy Noonan on as a commentator to discuss the big speeches of the evening.

On Wednesday, the big speech will come from Paul Ryan. It ought to continue the Christie theme of tackling the big issues.