There was a lot more action on the streets of downtown Tampa today. The weather and the cancelled session combined to make downtown a little empty Sunday and Monday.
Today was different. Not only was the sun shining but you could feel the hustle and bustle. A single protester was on a street corner shouting the GOP was the party of rage. Delegates and guests at the GOP convention were wandering with urgency, trying to find out where they needed to go to get in to reach the Forum. Ron Paul supporters occupied three corners of an intersection, chanting across the street at each other, “President!” “Paul!” came the response. All week we’ve seen emails and blog posts about how the Paul delegates will try to cause mischief during the convention and that the Romney people have contingency plans in place. One Ron Paul supporter I spoke with drove from Los Angeles and said his main concern was the GOP was changing the rules about how delegates are chosen to attend the convention, preventing grassroots candidates from having a say at future conventions.
Next to the Ron Paul supporters I found a lady selling Mitt Romney and GOP buttons. It’s not rare to find button sellers at political events. Passionate partisans love to buy buttons and others love to sell them for $5 a piece or 5 for $20. They say a portion of the proceeds goes to the campaign, but the woman I spoke with says she drove from Michigan and makes and designs her own buttons. She says they end up donating about $2,500 a year to the campaigns. She says the money from selling buttons supports her small newspaper in Michigan that caters to the medicinal marijuana and hemp crowd. She says she’ll put 40,000 miles on her car over the next few months, driving to different political events.
We also sat down with former Gov. and U.S. Senate Candidate Tommy Thompson. He was in classic form, laughing and talking about how he’s increased the number of push-ups he does each day. His new goal is 72 at a time, one for each county in Wisconsin. I asked Thompson why he was in Tampa Bay when his campaign was in Wisconsin and he gave me an honest answer, “Networking.” Thompson has been here for less than a day and has already given several speeches and re-connected with donors and politicians from around the country. Thompson is also a delegate, and will get to cast a vote to nominate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.
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