Love and Change in Tampa

Yesterday was something of a love fest at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Ann Romney ascended the stage wanting to “talk about love” and her life with Mitt Romney — not the founder of Bain Capital but the “tall, kind of charming young man” who brought her home from a dance 47 years ago and who still has the power to make her laugh.

Chris Christie told a rapt audience that conservatives had become “paralyzed by our desire to be loved,” pointing out that today’s leaders have often “decided it is more important to be popular, to do what is easy and say ‘yes,’ rather than to say no when ‘no’ is what’s required.”  

And then there was the rising star Mia Love, the mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, who is running for Congress and who recounted her parents’ journey from poverty and squalor in Haiti to America, a land of opportunity. It’s not clear that Ms. Love’s endorsement of Mitt Romney and the traditional American values he espouses will do much to move the statistical needle of African-American support for Romney from near zero, but if any speech could, she delivered it.