Keynote speaker largely glosses over Romney, Ryan
NewJersey Gov. Chris Christie gave the keynote address of the evening on the floor of the Republican National Convention Tuesday night. Christie spoke at great lengths about his formative years and career in politics, especially as governor of New Jersey, all the while appealing to all Republicans to unite to defeat President Barack Obama in November.
It took 17 minutes for Christie to take a break from talking about his achievements in and even speak about Mitt Romney. In the full 27-minute speech, Romney's name was only mentioned seven times, while Christie said "I" 18 times.
So you can't really blame me for forgetting who the Republicans were actually nominating. Most of Christie's speech sounded as if he was trying to make a pitch to the GOP for the nomination in 2016, with a few interjections of support for Romney. This should obviously call into question the faith that some within the Republican party have on whether or not Romney will actually win against Obama.
Christie gave an exciting, unifying speech with a passionate case against Obama that would've been great if he were actually running for president. After all, the RNC is now less about the actual Republican party and inter-party issues and more about the nomination of the presidential candidate, in this case Romney.
The speech will pay off for Christie in the future. If anything, it will aid him tremendously in his political future and propel him into the national spotlight. The consequence of that action is that his speech did little in the way of propelling Romney to the White House this year.