Thanks to Isaac, delegates and friends of delegates to the Republican National Convention from Ohio were forced to sit out the first day of what was to be a four-day convention here at their hotel, the Mainsail Suites Hotel, 9 miles from the convention site in downtown Tampa.
Delegates, who mostly arrived on Saturday and early Sunday, largely stuck around inside the hotel Monday as the weather whipped into the occasional high winds and lashing rain, which alternated with spells of sunshine.
That was outside.
What they heard inside was a stream of positive buzz about the Nov. 6 election and Ohio's role in winning that election for Mitt Romney.
Josh Romney, the middle son of Mitt and Ann Romney, gave his dad a boost with about 350 delegates and friends at a breakfast session in the Mainsail Conference Center.
Mr. Romney told Ohiaoans that campaigning for his father has shown him that he is not the favorite son of his father, as he previously believed.
The realization came when he was holding up a campaign sign outdoors in Fairbanks in minus-40-degree temperatures and he got an email from his brother Matt on the beach in Guam, with a lei around his neck.
"So I am one of the sons, not the favorite son, but I love campaigning for my dad. He really is my hero," Romney said.
Romney claimed his father has supporters around the world.
"We [the United States] have such a huge impact all over the world and people all around the world recognize the importance of this election, getting someone like my dad elected who understands the greatest hope for peace all around the world is a strong America, a strong military, and strong economy."
***
Ohio delegates also got a selling job on the importance of energy as a political issue in Ohio.
Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House from Georgia who gave Romney a tough fight for the GOP nomination, said technological advances in exploring for and extracting oil and natural gas are as significant as the development of the iPhone.
"We have had in energy a comparable breakthrough. It gives us the opportunity to break loose, to suddenly change the world," he said, equating the amount of oil now available under Ohio through "fracking" and other technologies is equal to that in Alaska's North Slope.
***
Ari Fleischer, press secretary under President George W. Bush, also stopped by to help entertain the hotel-bound delegates.
In cracking on what he sees as a record of failure under President Obama, Fleischer said, "in 2012 he changed his re-election motto from 'change is coming' to 'chains are coming.'
That was a reference to a statement by Vice President Joe Biden in a Virginia campaign event Aug. 14 in which he told an audience with many African-Amercans in it that the Romney campaign wants to "put you back in chains."
Fleischer claimed Biden's verbal goofs are so valuable to the Republican Party that he, Ari Fleischer, would go personally to the Democratic convention in Charlotte to put Biden's name in nomination.
***
Fran DeWine, the wife of Attorney General Mike DeWine is known for her cookbooks.
She's artsy-craftsy, too.
Mrs. DeWine made "Buckeyes for Romney" buttons for the delegates that incorporate actual Ohio buckeyes that fell from a tree on their Cedarville (Ohio) farm.
Both DeWines were wearing their buckeye pins Monday. Fran DeWine said she made about 200 of them.
Comments