As Mitt Romney and his campaign team “make the final adjustments to their plans for the convention,” the New York Times notes “they are grappling with the delicate questions that hang over these quadrennial gatherings of clashing ambition, competing political agendas and outsize egos. Add to this year’s mix personalities colorful enough to fill a reality show, and the fastidiously controlled, leave-nothing-to-chance Romney campaign has faced some hazardous casting choices. And what they decide could turn off the independent voters their carefully choreographed convention is meant to sway.”
Among those not speaking at the convention are Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Rick Perry, while Sarah Palin and Donald Trump are still in the mix.
Gingrich hoped to get a coveted speaking slot at the RNC. Instead the Romney campaign will have him teach a series of workshops they have nicknamed Newt University.
Bachmann and Cain have decided to stage their own mini-convention of sorts — calling it a “unity rally” to dispel any doubts about their party loyalty — at a megachurch about 20 minutes outside town.
Perry is trying to be a good sport about getting passed over for a speech. “That’s not my call to make,” he said in an interview this week. “The convention is for Mitt Romney, not for me. Not for Newt, not for Marco Rubio, not for Chris Christie. It’s for Mitt.”
