RNC Roundup: Paul Ryan Revs Up The Crowd, Condi In 2016?

GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan brought the delegation at the Republican National Convention in Tampa to life last night, getting a rise out of the crowd in his speech with attacks on President Obama and Democrats, references to his personal soundtrack — heavy on the classic rock — and a finale that smacked of a high school football team's war chant: "We can do this. Let's get this done." 

Ryan's speech got strong reactions, as well as some pushback from fact-checkers: 

• Analyst Cokie Roberts called his remarks "terrific," according to ABC senior political editor Rick Klein.
• Ryan didn't have to cajole the audience to their feet; Politico's Jonathan Martin told NPR's Morning Edition that Ryan's speech was really a re-energized start to an otherwise sluggish convention thus far. 
• But Washington Post fact-checkers called Ryan out on misleading information about the closure of a GM plant. 
• Ryan offered the "best defense" of Romney's Mormonism that NBC political analyst Chuck Todd has heard thus far. (NPR's It's All Politics blog notes that Mike Huckabee also addressed Romney's religion, giving him an "evangelical embrace.")
• The VP nominee's line about 20-something college graduates living in their childhood bedrooms likely played well, The Fix noted. 
• But Ryan's line about Obama "funnelling" $716 million out of Medicare "at the expense of the elderly" was "mostly false," according to fact-checkers at PolitiFact.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was the other star of the convention's second night, with many pundits predicting that she's setting herself up for a major political campaign in 2016 or 2020. Her line about growing up in the Jim Crow South believing that she could be president was especially poignant. 

In non-speech convention news, delegates strategized yesterday about how the GOP could make inroads with different voting blocs: 

• Maryland Republican convention delegate Ellen Sauerbrey, speaking on The Kojo Nnamdi Show, gave Mitt Romney some advice for courting voters in her true-blue state; as well as how to appeal to immigrants. 
• WNYC's Brian Lehrer on his convention call-in show analyzed how the various voting blocs will vote and whether they'll be swayed by GOP message. 
• Gay Republicans told NPR they aren't discouraged by their party's anti-gay marriage platform; in fact, they see the debate this year as a sign of good things to come in the marriage equality debate.
• But The Nation points out that there's one bloc that Romney probably has no hope for winning over at this point: Ron Paul supporters.

Elsewhere around the convention Wednesday: 

• Yahoo News' Washington bureau chief was fired after a live microphone at the convention picked up him saying that Republicans were "happy to have a party with black people drowning," in reference to Hurricane Isaac's effects on neighboring states. 
• To acknowledge ongoing effects of Isaac, the GOP Thursday afternoon reworked their convention home page to appeal for donations to the Red Cross for Isaac relief. 
• People were talking about Ann Romney, wife of GOP nominee Mitt Romney, all day, and Anita McBridge, former chief of staff for First Lady Laura Bush, spoke with WAMU host Pat Brogan about Ann Romney's ease at the podium due to her background in politics.
• Opinions are split on the Ryan Medicare voucher plan, according to delegates interviewed by WAMU 88.5's Matt Laslo.
• Ari Shapiro spotted some mermaids at a BuzzFeed party.
• #FlatKojo photobombed Wolf Blitzer and hair salon magnate Paul Mitchell.
• Kojo also talked with experts in Tampa about the city's unofficial status as the true home of the Cuban sandwich.