re-election in 2016, by, boy, that was the first number that popped in his head. tonight is paul ryan s night. it s ryan himself who sealed the deal with many conservatives, he s the one that may truly embody the direction the party is headed. here s wisconsin governor scott walker. with the announcement of paul ryan as his running mate, governor romney not only showed that he has the experience and the skill to become president, he showed he has the courage and the passion to be an exceptional president. with this pick, he showed that the r next to his name doesn t just stand for republican. it stands for reformer. virginia governor bob mcdonnell is chairman of the republican governor s association. he s head of the party s platform committee. he joins me now. whose party is this, paul ryan s or mitt romney s? is. this is mitt romney s party. but they re a team. who do you think electrifies those delegates?
the country. are there going to be democrats that are you going to welcome democrats who disagree with it, because there s a lot of republicans that disagree absolutely. but the president agrees with it. that s the point. the president is running for re-election. mitt romney is running for president. mitt romney s people were sitting in the room when the platform was being written. it was written at the direction of mitt romney s staff. they didn t speak up to put a rape exception in the human life amendment. they didn t speak up to access to contraception. it s a representation of where the president wants to take the country and where mitt romney wants to take the country. do you believe ann romney is a good surrogate for her husband? i do. i think it was clear last night she loves and respects her husband and we respect that. wives play an important role or spouses play an important role in these elections. they give a lens into what motivates people. it was a good spe
they would agree the republican platform 90% of what s in our platform has to do with fiscal issues and jobs and the economy and constitutional liberties and government reform. the stuff that people really care about. but most importantly, what we say is that the platform exercise, it s a grass roots, bottom-up exercise. lots of input from a lot of people. 30,000 comments from any number of people from around the country. and we offered that to the candidates and i think most of it will be embraced. had a lot of input from the romney team and paul team, sw. is it a mistake not to have the rape exception? it. we just didn t comment on it. this is a plank we ve had probably for 30 years which is we embrace innocent human life and the sanctity of life and the details are left to congress and the state. we believe in federalism. but that s one component. i know it s one a lot of people talked about, but it s overwhelming about how to get the country back to work with lowering tax
political career to date. the big night follows a program last night that was like a peanut butter and egg sandwich. two great tastes that maybe don t taste great together. two prime time speeches accomplished what they set out to do. but in making the soft sell and the hard sell on the same night, did the romney campaign try to do too much? often called her husband s greatest campaign asset, ann romney had one objective. how voters know her husband better. no one will work harder, no one will care more. and no one will move heaven and earth like mitt romney to make this country a better place to live. and ann romney tried to combat the notion she and her husband have lived a life of privilege. i read somewhere that mitt and i have a storybook marriage. well, let me tell you something. in the storybooks i read, there
campaigns are looking at now. they re going to be not that many of them. they re going to be the swing states. and my guess is 17 media markets. right. and the fact is that people you know, i ve been doing this a long time. still making up their mind. they take this in. they re not an easy sell. they know more about ann romney now and probably more about mitt romney, as well. all right. we ll see you tonight. of course, we re covering this for the next couple days. we re just getting started this morning. here in tampa. up next, blunt talk with missouri senator roy blunt. yes, we re talking about the republican rift over todd akin. will the controversy rear its ugly head at the podium when mike huckabee speaks? but first a look ahead at the schedules of president obama and the speaker s schedule tonight at the convention beyond just the, quote, prime time. you re watching the daily rundown only on msnbc, live from tampa, florida. welcome aboard!