My Experience at the Republican National Convention: Day 3

Day 3: Making Waves on the Convention’s Opening Day

When Tuesday arrived, all of the attention of The James Madison Institute (JMI) staff was on our lunch at 717 South – a really nice restaurant in a trendy area of south Tampa. I highly recommend it for an event or a simple meal or drink. The staff (and owner) were really great.

A month earlier, we had scheduled my friend James O’Keefe to be our keynote speaker to address to our members and guests about citizen journalism.  James is the President of Project Veritas, an organization of which I serve on the board of directors. While I have known James for eight years now and consider him one of my closest friends, he is most well known to the world as the guy who took down the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN). Most recently, Project Veritas has exposed voter fraud in multiple states.

Unfortunately, in the days leading up to our event, James was barred by the government from traveling to Tampa to address us. A little over two years ago, he was arrested during one of his undercover journalism investigations in a federal building in Louisiana. Charged with a misdemeanor B for being in a federal building under false pretenses, he was placed on probation for three years. This means that anytime he wants to leave his beloved state of New Jersey, he has to get permission. He almost always gets it, but anytime they want to make life difficult on him, they can. They are the government. They have the power to do so. Ironically, he was barred by the government from addressing a group that believes in limited government. Go figure.

But, no worries. In the age of new media, we worked around it. We brought a big screen and used Skype to beam James up on the screen where he put together a live presentation and answered questions from our 60-person audience. In addition, author John Fund, formerly of the Wall Street Journal and now the editor of The American Spectator and a frequent contributor to Fox News, joined us in person to provide welcoming remarks and introduce James.  John’s forthcoming book features a chapter on James and his ACORN and voter fraud investigations. In his remarks he called James his “hero” and thanked JMI for hosting him.  Two staff members, including the Executive Director of Project Veritas were with us in person as well to insure James’ presentation via Skype ran smoothly.

It turned out to be a great lunch. In addition, because the government barred James from coming, numerous national media covered the event. Our event made the front page of Politico and the Drudge Report. Hits to our website spiked that day. An all-around win for us. It was unfortunate my friend James couldn’t be with us in Tampa to hang out and have some fun after his presentation, but other than that, it turned out great.

After lunch, we ventured to downtown Tampa, where a good group of our staff attended a reception sponsored by the Florida Federation of Young Republicans. While there, we interacted with a number of folks, mostly young professionals from Tampa and around the state. In addition, we got to spend some quality time with three of my favorite state representatives from Miami – Michael Bileca, Jose Felix Diaz, and Carlos Trujillo. This was actually the first time I had met Carlos in person. All these guys are roughly around my age, so it was great to hang out with them and talk about some big ideas. They are big fans of JMI and great advocates for freedom. The reception also allowed us to get some dinner – the food and drinks were great. What amazed me during the week of the RNC was how much complimentary food and drinks were at all of these receptions and gatherings.

After the reception, we got a lift via a golf cart for about a 3/4 mile or so ride to an area near the entrance to the convention’s security gate. There was a massive perimeter around the Tampa Bay Times Forum. Once through the gate on either side, it was nearly a 1/2 mile or so walk up to the Forum. They didn’t want any bad guys getting close. This was a great goal, but in the end I think a bit overdone. That said, kudos to all the law enforcement and National Guard who were there to keep us safe.

Once inside the convention hall, we had some decent seats in the lower level, but our view of the speakers at the podium were obstructed. But that didn’t matter. We were in! We could see everything else going on and we were in an area where many members of the news media were sitting just a few rows in front of us: Chris Wallace of Fox News, Candy Crowley of CNN, and many others.

On Tuesday night, we heard speeches from many Republican Governors with great track records in their states including John Kasich of Ohio, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and Nikki Haley of South Carolina. We also heard from former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, who was “runner up” for the Republican nomination for President. When he came nearby for a media interview just 10 feet from us, I got his attention and waved. I then told him “I voted for you!” He gave me a big smile and head nod, appearing not wanting to be disrespectful to the man who actually got the nomination.

But the big primetime speeches of the night, starting at 10:00 PM ET were by future First Lady Ann Romney and Governor Christ Christie of New Jersey. I thought they both gave great speeches, especially Mrs. Romney. She really told a nice personal side of her longtime marriage with the Republican nominee for President. It was personal and endearing. Governor Christie was great, but I felt a little frustrated that they were making him read a pre-prepared script off a TelePrompTer. He is so much better without a script. They should just let Christie be Christie and let the chips fall where they may. That’s what people like about him.

After a long day Tuesday, we departed the Tampa Bay Times Forum and headed back to Treasure Island. We had attended our first day of the actual convention and had put together our first of two JMI events. We were only about half way done with the week and more excitement was still ahead.