Annalise Domenighini
Executive Managing Editor
Photo courtesy of : Fang Zhe/ZUMA Press/Newscom
At 2 p.m. EST Tuesday, the Republican National Convention officially met for the first day of this now three-day long convention and officially chose Mitt Romney as the Republican Presidential Candidate.
Romney secured the nomination after getting 2,061 votes during the roll call that began just after 2 p.m. EST. Ron Paul was given 190 votes, while former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Rep. Michelle Bachmann and former Louisiana Gov. Charles “Buddy” Roemer each got one vote, according to the Associated Press.
Following the roll call, 18 different speakers as well as video clips and entertainment from performers like the Oak Ridge Boys shared the stage. These speakers ranged from Gov. Chris Christie to Speaker of the House John Boehner, to Ann Romney and Former Senator Rick Santorum. The speeches all discussed different things, but continued to relate to a single theme ‘We Built It,’ which was also the day’s theme at the convention. This theme is in response to President Barack Obama’s remarks during a speech at a fire station in Roanoke, Virginia, in July that those who own small businesses did not build that business and that success themselves. Obama’s actual remarks were in the context of a larger point the president was trying to make – that you can’t get anywhere without the help of others.
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life,” said Obama. “Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”
Speaker of the House John Boehner, during his speech, regaled to the audience his experience growing up and working in the bar his father and uncles owned.
“That was my story. That was our business. We did build that. It could just as easily have been the story of anyone who’s built something from nothing,” said Boehner. “No guarantees. No government there to hold your hand. Just a dream and the desire to do better. President Obama just doesn’t get this. He can’t fix the economy because he doesn’t know how it was built.”
The economy and education were focal topics during Former Senator Rick Santorum’s speech, as he continued to reiterate the necessity for family values, education and hard work.
“Graduate from high school, work hard and get married before you have children and the chance you will ever be in poverty is just two percent,” said Santorum. “Yet if you don’t do these three things you’re 38 times more likely to end up in poverty!”
“Requiring work as a condition for receiving welfare succeeded — and not just because the welfare rolls were cut in half — but because employment went way up, poverty went down and dreams were realized,” Santorum later said. “It’s a sturdy ladder to success that is built with healthy families, education and hard work.But President Obama’s policies undermine the traditional family, weaken the education system.”
The Republican Party also officially adopted a strongly anti-same sex marriage platform. According to New York Times reporter Michael Cooper, “It calls state court decisions recognizing same-sex marriage as “an assault on the foundations of our society,” opposes gun legislation that would limit ‘the capacity of clips or magazines,’ supports the ‘public display of the Ten Commandments,’ calls on the federal government to drop its lawsuits challenging state laws adopted to combat illegal immigration, and salutes the Republican governors and lawmakers who “saved their states from fiscal disaster by reforming their laws governing public employee unions.”
The Republican National Convention continues tomorrow with speakers including Senator John McCain, Former Governor Mike Huckabee, Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan, and Former President George Bush will even be present via video.