Grand opening just took place. It was . . . interesting.

After the obligatory opening prayer, pledge of allegiance and singing of the national anthem (by a country star that I’m sure some people would know, but I don’t), Senator Lamar Alexander from Tennessee kicked things off by playing the piano and then was joined by the unknown singer (sorry, I’m more of a Metallica guy).

This was intended to fire up the crowd and to be truthful, Lamar is pretty good on the ivories.

Fortunately, he was an even better speaker (pictured at left). He did the usual rah-rah party stuff, made some decent jokes, and acted as MC, introducing each speaker.

RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman was next. Excellent speech (even though he was preaching to the choir) about how important this time in history really is and how important the next election will be. Judges, taxes, war on terror, homeland security — he probably hit all the talking points (read the text here). And had the flattest delivery in the history of political speechifying. He should have had a roaring crowd on their feet with his rhetoric, but didn’t.

But the AP proves its clairvoyance again: RCP Blog reports that they ran the story of Mehlman’s speech before the session began.

Next up was Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Impressive. Very impressive.

I don’t really know a lot about Romney, other than he is a Republican governor of (as he put it) “the bluest state in the nation”, so I had no real expectations. He was animated, entertaining, and down-to-earth yet commanding.

He talked about a program in his state that paid for a hotel for people rather than turning him away from a homeless shelter. He figured that the word had gotten around as it was costing the state $20 million a year. He instituted one change: that person would be accepted into the shelter and the person that had been there the longest would be sent to the hotel. The hotel bill for the homeless has dropped to zero. Clever.

He talked about how we are no longer leading the world in turning out engineers and the like, and how this was affecting outsourcing and American jobs. Best quote:

I don’t want America to become the France of the 21st century.

Also clever.

He ended with a story about an Olympian medal winner carrying the flag that flew over the WTC on 9/11. It was such a touching story that I don’t see how he told it with tearing up (probably because he’s told it a thousand times, but it choked me up a little).

Next up was Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman. Again, I didn’t know anything about him except that he used to be a Democrat. Again, impressive speaker. Very personable and almost folksy. Lots of references to his Jewish heritage. Amazingly, his accent was almost JFK at times. Weird.

He claimed that the Democrat party had left him, just as it is leaving the majority of Democrats. He said it was very appropriate that the Clinton presidency overlapped the show Seinfeld. A presidency about nothing and a show about nothing

I loved it when he called for Kofi Annan to resign, saying that the real “blood for oil” was the “Oil for Food” program.

He had a stirring section about how the Republican Party is the party of reform and transformation. Tax reform, education reform, Medicare reform, Social Security reform, and the party that believes in transforming tyrannies to democracies.

Senator David Vitter from Louisiana and Beverly Davis, president of the National Federation of Republican Women, finished up the speaking program. Again, great content, flat delivery.

The session ended with a screening of a new ad called Find the Leader. The press says that the ad is on the GOP website but I haven’t been able to find it (except for the text).

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