TAMPA—With heavy weather barreling down on the Republican National Convention, about 2,000 tea party supporters on Sunday night squeezed in a celebration of their role in pushing the GOP presidential ticket rightward.
"You have succeeded wildly. Take a victory lap," said former Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann.
The Minnesota congresswoman congratulated the tea party movement for pressing Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who will be named his party's nominee for president, to reject President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.
Romney, Bachmann said, "has promised to repeal Obamacare on the very first day, without batting an eyelash. The tea party needs to take a bow for that," she said.
With the convention reduced on Monday to a five-minute gaveling in, quickly followed by adjournment, Sunday's gathering at The River at Tampa Bay Church, a multi-racial, non-traditional congregation, was one of the last big bashes as the city pulled its shutters closed to wait for Tropical Storm Isaac.
"Unity Rally 2012" was aimed squarely at conservatives for whom Romney was not a first choice.
Conservatives "may not be homogeneous, which means one sound-bite doesn't describe every Republican, every tea partyer," said another former GOP presidential candidate, Herman Cain, the recipient of the loudest applause of the evening, plus several standing ovations. "We are not a sound-bite."
Cain made reference to the tension that the tea party movement has cause within the Republican party -- this is the first GOP convention since the movement began in 2009. "There are people who were hoping that you wouldn't show up," he said. "They hoped that Herman and other people would be speaking to an empty room."
Cain's temporary but surprising sprint to the front of the GOP presidential contest began almost exactly a year ago, with his victory in a straw poll conducted by the Florida Republican party. His campaign blew up after several women accused Cain of past inappropriate behavior.
On Sunday, Cain blamed the collapse on "lies and dirty politics."
The former pizza executive said he has been asked whether he is disappointed at not being offered a speaking role in the convention, which has been reduced to three-days of speeches and assorted events.
"It's not about me. It's about the grandkids," Cain said.
Like many of the other speakers, Cain praised Romney for his choice of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin congressman, as his running mate. "It energized the ticket, and said a lot about the leadership of Governor Romney. He didn't make a safe choice. He made a bold choice."
A third Romney rival has been given a speaking role in the convention. On Sunday, it was announced that former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich and his wife Callista would make a brief appearance on Thursday, giving remarks on the late President Ronald Reagan and his legacy.
The case for Romney was made most forcibly at the tea party rally by U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, who credited Romney with saving the 2002 Winter Olympics. "You don't understand how bad this was. But if you lived in Utah, you did," Chaffetz said.
The congressman told of Romney confronting an Olympic staff that provided itself with free lunches. Romney, Chaffetz said, ordered pizza delivered to the offices at noon every day -- and charged $1 a slice for a $5 pizza. He made a profit, Chaffetz said.
Chaffetz, like Cain, gave great praise to Ryan -- and said he hoped the Wisconsin congressman would some day be president as well.
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