TAMPA -- Lights, camera, action: The Republican National Convention officially begins today at 2 p.m. ET inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum. 
 
 USA TODAY is providing full coverage throughout the three-day event, which wraps up Thursday when Mitt Romney accepts his party's presidential nomination. Check your local TV listings for more coverage. 
 
 Here is our guide to the five things to watch on Tuesday, Aug. 28: 
 
 1) Ann Romney will speak during the 10 p.m. ET hour of programming. Her remarks are aimed at showing the delegates -- and millions of TV viewers -- a softer side of her husband. 
 
 2) Romney will be followed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who will deliver the keynote address. Christie, a populist favorite who ignored pleas to run for president this year, told USA TODAY that he plans to "tell some very direct and hard truths to people in the country about the trouble that we're in." 
 
 3) The traditional roll call of the states formally nominating Romney for president will be conducted in the afternoon and end in time for the evening newscasts. No surprise here, but it's a piece of business that's a staple of political conventions. 
 
 4) Rick Santorum emerged as the conservative alternative to Romney during the GOP primaries. He fell short, but the ex-Pennsylvania senator gets to tell his story about being the son of immigrants and the fight in Congress during the mid-1990s to overhaul welfare. 
 
 5) Four years ago, Alabama congressman Artur Davis was in Denver nominating Barack Obama for president. Now, Davis is a Republican supporting Romney, and he's got some strong things to say about the Democratic Party he left behind. ||||| Mitt Romney swept to the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday night at a storm-delayed national convention scripted to propel him into a close race for the White House in tough economic times. 
 
 Ann Romney, wife of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, looks over the main stage during a sound check at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012.... (Associated Press) 
 
 New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, right, stands on the main stage in the Tampa Tribune Forum before the start of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., on Monday, Aug. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/J.... (Associated Press) 
 
 Delegates from the state of Georgia applaud after casting their votes for presidential candidate Mitt Romneyduring the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Lynne... (Associated Press) 
 
 Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, center, R-Wis., works on the speech he will deliver at the Republican National Convention, with senior adviser Dan Senor, left, and senior aid... (Associated Press) 
 
 Ann Romney, wife of Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney hands out cookies during a flight to Tampa, Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Associated Press) 
 
 Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talks with staff after boarding his flight for Tampa on Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012 in Bedford, Mass. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Associated Press) 
 
 Texas delegate Clint Moore and the rest of Texas delegates fashion their cowboy hats at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) (Associated Press) 
 
 California casts their votes for presidential candidate Mitt Romney during the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) (Associated Press) 
 
 The former Massachusetts governor watched on television with his wife, Ann, at a hotel suite across the street from the convention hall as delegates sealed his hard-won victories in the primaries and caucuses of last winter. 
 
 New Jersey put him over the top in a ritual roll call of the states. 
 
 Republican mockery of President Barack Obama began almost instantly from the podium at a convention postponed once and dogged still by Hurricane Isaac. The Democratic president has "never run a company. He hasn't even run a garage sale or seen the inside of a lemonade stand," declared Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican Party. 
 
 To send Romney and ticketmate Paul Ryan into the fall campaign, the convention quickly approved a conservative platform that calls for tax cuts _ not government spending _ to stimulate the economy at a time of sluggish growth and 8.3 percent unemployment. 
 
 Ann Romney's speech was scheduled as a prime-time highlight, an appearance meant to cast her multimillionaire-businessman-turned-politician husband in a soft and likable light before a national TV audience. 
 
 Aides said Romney would be in the hall when she spoke. 
 
 While there was no doubt about Romney's command over the convention, the residue of a heated campaign for the nomination was evident inside the hall. 
 
 Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who never won a primary or caucus, drew several dozen delegate votes. Earlier, his supporters chanted and booed after the convention adopted rules they opposed, but were powerless to block, to prevent those votes from being officially registered. 
 
 Opinion polls made the race a close one as the Republicans' days of pageantry and speechmaking began in earnest, and the man tapped to deliver the keynote address set the stakes. 
 
 "Conventions are always huge for a challenger, because they're the ones introducing themselves" to the voters, said New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. 
 
 Convention planners squeezed two days of speeches and other convention business into one after scrapping Monday's scheduled opener because of fears that Isaac would make a direct hit on the Florida Gulf Coast. 
 
 That threat fizzled, but it was instantly replaced by another _ that Republicans would wind up holding a political celebration at the same time the storm turned its fury on New Orleans, devastated almost exactly seven years ago by Hurricane Katrina. 
 
 Romney's convention planners said they were in frequent contact with weather forecasters, but they declined to discuss what contingency plans, if any, they had to accelerate plans for him to deliver a formal acceptance speech Thursday night. 
 
 "This is obviously the biggest speech of my life," Mrs. Romney said as she visited the custom-made podium to prepare for her remarks. 
 
 Ratification of a party platform was prelude to Romney's nomination, a document more conservative on abortion than the candidate. 
 
 On economic matters, it backs extension of the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 and due to expire at year's end, without exception. It also calls for an additional 20 percent reduction in income tax brackets that Romney favors. 
 
 In a time of 8.3 percent unemployment and the slowest economic recovery in the post-World War II era, that went to the crux of the campaign for the White House. 
 
 By contrast, Obama wants to allow existing tax cuts to expire on upper income taxpayers, and has criticized Romney's overall economic plans as a boon to millionaires that would raise taxes on the middle class. 
 
 The GOP platform also pledges that a Republican-controlled Congress will repeal, and Romney will sign, legislation to repeal the health care legislation Obama won from a Democratic-controlled Congress. So, too, for the measure passed to regulate Wall Street in the wake of the 2008 economic collapse. 
 
 On abortion, the platform says, "The unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed." 
 
 Romney opposes abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or when "the health and life of the mother" are at stake, he said in a convention week interview. 
 
 Obama, who accepts renomination at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., next week, campaigned in Iowa Tuesday as he set out on a tour of college campuses in battleground states in hopes of boosting voter registration among college students. 
 
 Before departing the White House, he made a point of appearing before reporters to announce the government's latest steps to help those in the way of Isaac. He signed a declaration of emergency for Mississippi and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local storm response efforts in the state. 
 
 His surrogates did their best to counter Romney and the Republicans. 
 
 Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, dismissing GOP attempts to woo Hispanic voters, said, "You can't just trot out a brown face or a Spanish surname and expect people are going to vote for your party or your candidate." He added, "This is a party with a platform that calls for the self-deportation of 11 million people." 
 
 Hispanics strongly favor Obama, according to public polls, and Romney and his party have been seeking to win a bigger share of their votes by emphasizing proposals to fix the economy rather than ease their positions on immigration. 
 
 Female voters, too, prefer the president over his challenger, and Democrats have done their best to emphasize GOP opposition to abortion and even suggest the party might try and curtail access to contraceptives if it wins power. 
 
 Whatever the impact of those issues, the polls show the economy is overwhelmingly the dominant issue in the race, and on that, the voters narrowly say they trust Romney more. 
 
 In an AP-GfK poll taken Aug. 16-20, some 48 percent of registered voters said they trust Romney more on economic issues, to 44 percent for Obama. 
 
 However, a Washington Post-ABC News in the days immediately before the convention found that 61 percent of registered voters said Obama was more likable, and 27 percent said Romney. 
 
 The convention took place in an atmosphere of security that was both stringent and selective. Thousands of police from all over the country, joined by National Guard troops, Secret Service and others, stood in small groups at checkpoints, demanding those entering a secure area display proper credentials numerous times. 
 
 But former Michigan Gov. John Engler and an aide were hustled to the front of a long line waiting to clear security at one building. 
 
 Aside from Paul, Romney's long-ago rivals for the party nomination had bit roles at his convention, if that. 
 
 Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain posed for a photo after running into each other at the convention center. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum were also in town, as well, both with speaking slots, unlike Bachmann and Cain. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Brian Bakst, Thomas Beaumont, Tamara Lush, Brendan Farrington, Julie Mazziotta, Steve Peoples, Kasie Hunt and Philip Elliott in Florida and Steven Ohlemacher, Alicia A. Caldwell and Jennifer Agiesta in Washington contributed to this report.
– The GOP convention's main order of business is in the books: In the state roll call late this afternoon, Mitt Romney claimed the magic number of 1,144 delegates to secure the nomination, reports AP. For the record, New Jersey put him over the top. Romney is in Tampa to watch wife Ann's speech tonight, but the candidate himself isn't scheduled to address the convention—and accept the nomination—until Thursday night. After the roll call, Republicans nominated Paul Ryan by acclamation to be Romney's VP candidate. The final presidential tally, from CNN: Romney: 2,061 Ron Paul: 190 Rick Santorum: 9 Michele Bachmann: 1 Jon Huntsman: 1 Buddy Roemer: 1 Abstain/uncommitted: 20