By For our first foray into making a video version of #HashOut, we tracked down delegates, students and a few journalists and asked what five words they wanted to hear from Mitt Romney in his Thursday speech. We talked to more than a dozen people and some of them really stood out.
For those of you following me on Twitter, you know that I'm keeping track of the number of black people I spot at the RNC convention. It's mostly satirical but I'm also truly interested. Most of the black folks I'm seeing aren't actually with the Republican Party, but in the halls of the Tampa forum I ran into an unlikely face: a college-aged black man from Maryland who supports Obama but is a Blue Dog Democrat. He wanted to expose himself to more arguments and he actually gave me a bit of hope for our future as a nation.
We also found a moment with ABC's Rick Klein who said Mitt Romney should use the words: jobs, freedom, dad, liberty, and jobs (again). I was hoping he meant Romney should just yell the word, "dad!" from the convention stage, but he meant Romney should talk about being a father, which is far less interesting but probably more effective at getting him into the White House.
Also, despite seeing that Klein had left his computer, and thus Twitter account, unattended, I did not tweet, "Free whiskey at my hotel room!" from his account.
Grover Norquist participates in #HashOut, the Yahoo! News talk show on Twitter, and because I've done some standup comedy fundraisers with him, I reached out to get him involved with HashOut: On Location. Of course he talked about tax reform in his suggestions for Romney's speech. We also talked about his role in a recent Onion news story and our appearance Tuesday night at the Republican National Convention's comedy show at the Tampa Improv.
But my personal highlight of the day took place at Pops and Sons diner.
There we met a man named "Bunky" who rides a horse ... as his transportation ... in Tampa. Bunky Hall introduced himself like this:
"You see me walking in your neighborhood, you'll call The Law. But if I'm on my horse, you'll give me your child and let me walk away and never ask my name. A horse gives you credibility."
To answer today's #HashOut question, visit Yahoo News on Twitter.
