TAMPA, Florida (ABC 4 News) - Now that the first day of the Republican National Convention is cancelled, what will Utah's delegation do to pass the time?
ABC 4's senior political reporter Chris Vanocur is in the middle of all the madness. He said Monday’s cancellation of events means delegates will be seeing more of their hotel rooms than they’d like.
“I think the plan with the Utah delegation now is to spend the bulk of Monday in the hotel doing some sort of community activity,” said Vanocur. “They’ll do whatever they can do to stay inside and stay safe.”
Tropical Storm Isaac is forcing republicans to delay the start of the convention until Tuesday. That means events will be condensed.
“What they are going to try to do is take a planned four-day convention and squeeze everything they can in three days,” said Vanocur. “Most of the key speakers are still going to speak but it will be on different days and times and it will be shortened speeches.”
Vanocur said he remembers when Salt Lake City along with Tampa were both being considered to host the 2012 convention. Concerns of hurricanes did come up with the site selection team, but were brushed aside.
“Hurricanes were a concern for Tampa,” said Vanocur. “Tampa won out, but they were talking about this and even though chances were small, those chances are unfortunately seem to be coming true to some degree.”
