RNC Watch: RGA Chairman says Rob McKenna would govern like Scott Walker

Today is the sec­ond day of the 2012 Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion in Tam­pa, Flori­da. Here’s a roundup of some of the goings-on there, as report­ed by The Seat­tle Times’ Jim Brun­ner, The Stranger’s Paul Con­stant, and oth­er jour­nal­ists who are in town cov­er­ing the con­ven­tion from a nation­al perspective.

At the Hol­i­day Inn this morn­ing in Clear­wa­ter (a sub­urb of Tam­pa) the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can del­e­ga­tion heard from spe­cial guest Bob McDon­nell, who is the gov­er­nor of Vir­ginia as well as the cur­rent chair of the Repub­li­can Gov­er­nors Asso­ci­a­tion (RGA). McDon­nell appar­ent­ly came pri­mar­i­ly to sing the prais­es of Rob McKen­na, the par­ty’s can­di­date for gov­er­nor. (McKen­na him­self is not in Tam­pa, hav­ing elect­ed to stay home and cam­paign in the Ever­green State). Accord­ing to the Seat­tle Times’ Jim Brun­ner, who was in the room and heard the speech, McDon­nell sin­gled out Wis­con­sin’s Scott Walk­er as one of the best gov­er­nors in the coun­try… and then sug­gest­ed McKen­na would gov­ern like Walker:

He [Walk­er] rep­re­sents what gov­ern­ing is all about. You look peo­ple in the eye, you have the courage to tell them the truth about what you can and can’t afford, about what poli­cies you have to put in place… and then you get elect­ed and you actu­al­ly do it.

[…]

That’s what Scott Walk­er did in Wis­con­sin, and that’s what Rick Hill and Rob McKen­na are going to do in their states as well.

Democ­rats have long sug­gest­ed that Rob McKen­na is a Scott Walk­er wannabe, while McKen­na’s cam­paign has tried its best to dimiss the juxtaposition.

But now the chair­man of the Repub­li­can Gov­er­nors Asso­ci­a­tion has made the very same com­par­i­son. That’s pret­ty telling.

Mean­while, as if we need­ed anoth­er reminder that the author­i­ties have resolved to put pro­test­ers’ First Amend­ment rights on ice dur­ing the nation­al con­ven­tions, The Stranger’s Paul Con­stant reports that police offi­cers shooed a cou­ple of Work­ing Wash­ing­ton activists away from the Clear­wa­ter Hol­i­day Inn (which, again, is the host hotel for the state Repub­li­can del­e­ga­tion). The activists had not been plan­ning on dis­rupt­ing the break­fast meet­ing — they sim­ply want­ed to be in a place where Wash­ing­ton’s Repub­li­can del­e­gates could see them. But they left after police told them to get lost and threat­ened to arrest them if they didn’t.

Two white suprema­cists were eject­ed from the Tam­pa Bay Times Forum after they phys­i­cal­ly and ver­bal­ly assault­ed a black CNN cam­er­a­woman. The two indi­vid­u­als — who have been described in some press reports as Repub­li­can del­e­gates — report­ed­ly threw peanuts at the woman and sneered, “This is how we feed ani­mals.” The assault took place in front of sev­er­al witnesses.

CNN con­firmed the inci­dent and said it had worked with the Repub­li­can Par­ty to address the mat­ter, but had no fur­ther comment.

The net­work ought to do us all a favor and actu­al­ly report on this sto­ry instead of just say­ing, Yeah, that hap­pened. Who are these racists? Are they del­e­gates? Repub­li­can Par­ty lead­ers? Or just guests at the con­ven­tion? Is their ejec­tion per­ma­nent? (Let’s hope they’re not going to be allowed back in).

ThinkProgress did a great job ear­li­er this evening of live­blog­ging the RNC dur­ing the prime­time speak­ing seg­ments. They man­aged to keep an eye on the tra­di­tion­al medi­a’s cov­er­age while also high­light­ing some of the incon­ve­nient truths ignored by speak­ers like Chris Christie of New Jer­sey, who gave the keynote address… and referred to him­self more often than Mitt Rom­ney. (For instance, key indi­ca­tors show that New Jer­sey’s econ­o­my has not improved since Christie took office after defeat­ing Demo­c­rat Jon Corzine in 2009).