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been cooling their heels in Tampa, the party is finally on. But with New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast waiting fearfully to see where a massive storm makes landfall, politics has become an awkward enterprise and no one knows what sort of party it will turn out to be.
• At least for now, the Republican National Convention will go on Tuesday according to its latest script: delivering Mitt Romney the presidential nomination he fought years to achieve, calling the party to unify around him and setting the stage for the final stretch of the hotly contested campaign to unseat President Barack Obama.
• Romney was coming to Tampa on Tuesday, in time to see his wife's speech in the evening, although it was kept a mystery whether he would attend the convention before his big address Thursday night.
• The high campaign season opens with Romney and Obama about even in the last of the pre-convention polls, with each candidate possessing distinct and important advantages. The Democrat is the more likable or empathetic leader; the Republican is more highly regarded as the candidate who can restore the economy, the top issue for voters.
• Ann Romney's convention speech was designed to speak to that divide. It was an important part of the GOP's effort to flesh out her husband and present him to the nation as more than a successful businessman and the former Republican governor of a Democratic state, Massachusetts.
• ___

• TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- If the presidential election were held today, Romney and Obama would be more or less tied, the latest polls show. But on one voter test, Obama has a clear advantage:
• Whom would you rather have a beer with?
• Or, if you don't drink (as Romney doesn't), whom would you rather have a cup of coffee with? Or take with you on a road trip (with or without your dog)? Or invite over for dinner?
• Simply put, there is a likability gap.
• This may seem trivial compared to questions like, say, which candidate you think will better revive the economy or safeguard the nation's nuclear weapons. But elec

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