Paul Ryan to Speak at Republican National Convention; Paul Ryan's Big Night; Unsolicited Advice
BLITZER: We're joined now by CNN contributor, Sirius XM radio host, Pete Dominick. He's over at the CNN Grill here at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. He's getting some unsolicited advice from our panel. Pete, what are you hearing?</s>PETE DOMINICK, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I'm hearing a lot, Wolf. Thank you very much. Here with my brilliant panel. There's a lot of talk about the mixed reviews last night of Chris Christie for one. Let's take a snapshot of what we heard so far today.</s>ANN ROMNEY, WIFE OF MITT ROMNEY: I want to talk to you about the deep and abiding love I have for a man I met at a dance many years ago.</s>JOHN BERMAN, ANCHOR, CNN'S "EARLY START": Chris Christie, who gave the keynote address, he talked about love but in a much different way.</s>GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: Tonight, we're going to choose respect over love.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was criticized for taking 17 minutes to mention Mitt Romney's name.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If Mitt Romney doesn't win, there's going to be a battle for who's the leader of the party. And I think Paul Ryan no doubt tonight has the opportunity to seize that and sort of close the deal. Chris Christie I think fell way, way short.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think by 11:00 p.m. Eastern tonight the nation will know how unique Paul Ryan is as a policy visionary and as a spokesperson for our party.</s>DOMINICK: All right, so a lot of talk about Chris Christie last night and Paul Ryan tonight. Guys, are these guys at odds? We're all on the same page, right? They're all trying to get Mitt Romney elected. Aren't they, Ross?</s>ROSS DOUTHAT, "NEW YORK TIMES" COLUMNIST: I mean, I think Chris Christie was kind of a victim of Twitter. I think if you were watching the speech last night as a journalist you were sitting there, Christie was talking and suddenly you're sitting there with your hand held and you're reading people tweeting. And suddenly people tweeting when's he going to mention Mitt Romney? It's been 5 minutes, it's been 10 minutes and that became the narrative about the Christie's speech. But I thought Christie's speech was actually pretty good. In fact, I thought it was better than Ann Romney's, which I think was a little bit overrated. I don't know what Carly thinks as the Republican woman here.</s>CARLY FIORINA (R), FORMER SENATE CANDIDATE: Well, you know, it's interesting. I thought Chris Christie followed the pattern that other governors laid out. Every governor who got on that stage last night talked about their experience applying conservative principles to a difficult situation and their success. And Christie added to that by saying here's how people respond to this. They respond to leadership and then, of course, he tossed the ball to Mitt Romney. I think hindsight's 20/20. But it occurred to me this morning we might be having a different conversation if Chris Christie had preceded Ann Romney. I think there was a little bit of whiplash going from Chris Christie to Ann -- from Ann Romney's let's talk about love to Chris Christie's what I'm focused on is respect.</s>DOMINICK: Is this a four-day commercial for Republican principles or to get Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan elected?</s>VAN JONES, FORMER OBAMA SPECIAL ADVISER: It's a little bit of both. Here's the deal, it's easy in hindsight. You said hindsight's 20/20, that's true. Do you want Ann Romney though to follow Chris Christie? I mean, people -- this build-up for Chris Christie I think was his biggest enemy. People thought this guy was going to come and do everything imaginable and frankly, I thought it was a big belly flop of mean. To me it didn't work. On the other hand, Ann Romney comes out and says I want to talk about love. She talks about love. She gets love and respect. Chris Christie talks about and says I don't care about the love, I just want my respect. I don't think he got respect or love. So for me I look at it as one of these weird situations where in hindsight Ann Romney should have followed Chris Christie. Nobody said that yesterday. Not a single person said that yesterday.</s>DOMINICK: Mr. Mayor.</s>BOB BUCKHORN (D), TAMPA MAYOR: It's interesting. It looked like a trial run for 2016. Mrs. Romney was great. She was very warm and affectionate and you could tell the deep admiration and affection she has for her husband. But others were touting her own credentials more than they were talking about their nominee.</s>DOUTHAT: Well, I think with Ryan though tonight I think setting this up as Ryan's chance to sort of outshine Chris Christie in the 2016 sweepstakes. Mitt Romney has a very good chance of actually winning this election.</s>DOMINICK: What's Ryan's mission tonight?</s>DOUTHAT: Ryan's mission tonight is to sell Romney.</s>DOMINICK: Yes.</s>DOUTHAT: Sell himself. And I think sell swing voters who might be, you know, he's introducing himself to the national electorate for the first time. And he has to present himself not just as Mr. Wonky conservative, but also as Mr. relatable potential vice president.</s>DOMINICK: Right. What I don't understand is how are we not already sold on Mitt Romney? He's been running for president a long time. We have had a really good long time to get to know Mitt Romney. You know, Ann Romney said last night you got to get to know my husband. We know him as good as we're going to get to know him. What else are we going to learn?</s>FIORINA: First of all, I think that's a very loaded question if you don't mind my saying so.</s>DOMINICK: I don't.</s>FIORINA: Mr. Mayor, I'm shocked and amazed people would use the platform of a convention to highlight their own credentials. That's what politics are all about.</s>DOUTHAT: No one after Barack Obama's famous key address in 2004 was saying, he stepped on John Kerry and it's so terrible. I think you can do both. You can sell yourself and do your party a favor.</s>FIORINA: But I do think to your question seriously, look, it is true that a lot of people haven't tuned in to this quite like the way us political junkies do. I do actually think this is important. The reaction that I've heard from so many Democrats to this is a bunch of adjectives. When people are throwing adjectives around, they don't have ideas or facts. I think what the Republicans are trying to do last night and I think Paul Ryan will do tonight is talk about ideas. Talk about policies. Talk about solutions. And so the Democrats now I think there are going to be pressure on the Democrats next week to get rid of the invective. Get rid of all the emotions about Republicans being mean and insincere and offer ideas. What's going to work?</s>JONES: I agree with you in the following respect, I think Paul Ryan for Democrats is conceivably the most dangerous weapon the Republicans have. I hope he goes in tonight and tries to make sure that the Tea Party likes him a lot. I hope he tries to be their hero. If he doesn't, if he realizes he can actually turn and be a crossover, if he tries to become Jack Kemp tonight, I think Democrats have a problem. Because this guy, he's good looking --</s>DOMINICK: Who was his mentor?</s>JONES: Jack Kemp. I hope he gets caught up in this convention atmosphere and does tonight what they did last night, fire up that Tea Party base. Then I'm going to sleep very well. If Paul Ryan says this is my chance to lead the whole country toward opportunity, we're in deep trouble. I don't believe he actually has a message that can --</s>DOMINICK: Tonight at a convention, isn't he supposed to talk in great narratives and talk a lot about Mitt Romney and how great he is?</s>DOUTHAT: This is -- to differ just a little bit with Carly, I think what we've seen from Republicans to date has been a lot of themes, a lot of philosophical statements, but not that much nitty- gritty. I mean, Chris Christie talked a lot about the idea of tough choices and so on, but he didn't actually say here are the entitlement cuts we're putting on the table. And I think Ryan part of his -- and I think van would probably agree with this, part of his skill set as a politician is he gets a little wonky and people like it. So I think there is an advantage for Ryan in going a little bit deeper into the policy weaves. Not in the sense of saying we're going to spend this amount in 2017, but in sort of selling himself as a guy who knows the numbers really well.</s>DOMINICK: He also has to sell himself. You're right, I agree, I change my mind. We get to know Mitt Romney tonight because people haven't paying attention. But Paul Ryan is way more unknown than Mitt Romney. How much does Paul Ryan have to talk about Paul Ryan?</s>FIORINA: I think that's exactly right. I think there have been real ideas and solutions put on the table last night particularly by the governors. But I think the challenge now, Van, to your point is to make it clear to the voters that reducing the size of government is not different from growth. It is part of a growth agenda and an ever expanding federal government is stifling growth. We have to make that case tonight. And I think Paul Ryan is well-qualified to make it.</s>DOMINICK: I got to can ask the mayor of Tampa, you are a Democrat. You were on the RNC stage yesterday. You're a delegate next week in Charlotte. How dare you put city before party?</s>BUCKHORN: Shame on me.</s>DOMINICK: Is that what you did? Did you do that?</s>BUCKHORN: I would do it again in a heartbeat. And I will tell you as a Democratic mayor, I am proud to host the RNC. It's great for my city. It's great for jobs. I'd do it again in a second. I don't care about the partisanship and that's why mayors should rule the world.</s>DOUTHAT: If we see him in Charlotte, he might make a slightly different point.</s>BUCKHORN: No, I won't.</s>FIORINA: You've done a great job by the way, Mr. Mayor, in welcoming everyone to Tampa.</s>BUCKHORN: I'm so proud of our city.</s>DOMINICK: All right, guys. Well, thank you for joining us this brilliant conversation as always. Appreciate it. We got to throw it back to Wolf in a moment here. So, back to Wolf. Thank you, guys.</s>BLITZER: Pete, thanks very much. Much more on the political convention that's going on. They're getting excited about what's going to happen tonight. Paul Ryan, the vice presidential nominee will address this crowd. The other huge story we're following right now, the disaster unfolding along the gulf coast including in Louisiana. Isaac is causing more damage than Hurricane Katrina did in one particular area seven years ago. We'll explain what I mean. And we've got some amazing video of the rescues. You're going to see it raw and unedited as it came into CNN.