Delegates chosen by voters in this year's presidential primaries and caucuses are getting ready to attend the 2012 Republican National Convention starting Monday inTampa.
Charlie Gerow is one of 72 delegates from Pennsylvania. This will be the Mechanicsburg resident's 10th GOP National Convention. Gerow expects this convention will be slightly different than others because of the reaction to the Romney-Ryan ticket.
"The conventions, when you've been to several of them aren't really that different from year to year, but I think the level of excitement among the delegates this year in unrivaled in recent conventions anyway because there is tremendous energy."
He said the main focus of this year's convention is going to be the economy and employment, and anticipates the Obama campaign to try to "deflect" attention away from those issues by drawing attention to other topics.
"On Mitt Romney's tax returns, on the dog on top of his car, or on some other issue that doesn't really matter to Americans when they sit down at their kitchen table to figure out the family budget."
Gerow added the issues for the commonwealth are the same as those impacting the nation as a whole.
"The people of this country, the people of Pennsylvania, working people, need to know that their economy, their family budgets are going to be protected and taken care of, and I think that's the key message coming back to Pennsylvania out of the Republican National Convention."
