The LATimes on Tampa’s “Faith & Freedom Coalition” rally:
TAMPA, Fla. — About 1,000 Christian conservatives rallied against President Obama and for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in a sometimes-fiery gathering at a downtown theater Sunday afternoon.
Speakers at the Faith & Freedom Coalition gathering blamed Obama for a series of woes, including high unemployment, the rise of Islamic radicals and America’s purported moral decay…
Gingrich stirred the crowd, as did organizer Ralph Reed, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, U.S. Senate candidate Red Cruz of Texas and a trio of Christian-oriented musical acts.
Though the oncoming Tropical Storm Isaac had not yet brought heavy weather, about half of the balcony in the 1,400-seat theater remained empty through the two-hour event. A demonstration by several liberal activists briefly interrupted the program before police hustled the interlopers out of the historic Tampa Theatre.
Still, Reed — the onetime Christian Coalition leader — predicted that a newly invigorated Christian activist community would carry Romney to victory in November…
“If we have to, we will crawl across broken glass, but we are coming and when we come we are going to have the biggest victory we have had for time-honored values in the history of this country,” Reed said. “That’s what’s getting ready to happen.”…
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Meanwile, up the Mensa scale and down the media feeding chain, Dave Weigel files his preliminary reports on “Ron Paul’s ‘We Are the Future’ Rally“:
TAMPA — He lost the Ames straw poll by a whisker, he peaked too early in Iowa’s caucuses, he missed the big headlines by not winning Maine’s preference poll. Finally, today, Ron Paul came into some luck. The threat of Hurricane Isaac was scrapping the first day of the Republican National Convention. Reporters who had planned to preview day one were screwed. Editors suddenly remembered that Ron Paul was supposed to do something or other. And off they went to the Sun Dome, the arena at Southern Florida University, where 7000-odd people would join the “We Are the Future Rally.”
It was Paul’s second attempt at an “alternative convention.” In 2008, he brought supporters to Minneapolis for the “Rally for the Republic.” Tucker Carlson, in his pre-Daily Caller says, emceed the proceedings. I should say: He emceed them until Jesse Ventura spoke and started talking about 9/11, which scared Carlson (and Willie Geist) the hell out of there. Gary Johnson spoke at that rally, when he was a retired politician. Now that he was a Libertarian presidential candidate, he was absent. This was a Ron Paul show, a kind of tribute, and the candidate would use it to say all the things people never let him say. “I don’t do it out of sacrifice,” said the candidate. “I do it out of self-interest. I do it because it’s good for me.”…
Links to other un-conventional takes on the convention would be much appreciated — leave me a comment!
Tampa: It Begins (With or Without the Wonderbread Twins)Post + Comments (29)