SC Sen. Larry Grooms: Romney's Week to Shine

TAMPA, Florida — Forget about the negative ads, forget about the lackluster approval ratings, and forget the horror stories you've heard about Bain Capital.

By the time this week's Republican National Convention is over, American will be looking at presidential candidate Mitt Romney in a whole new light.

At least that's the view from South Carolina state Sen. Larry Grooms of Berkeley County, who is joining 51 other delegates and alternates from the Palmetto State in Tampa.

"The race is a little polarized, more so than normal. But I think that's going to start to change," he said. "You've got some folks who are going to look at (President Barack) Obama, they're going to be looking at Romney and they're going to be weighing the differences."

And when they look at all the factors, Grooms contends, voters will back Romney.

"After hearing a lot of the ads, they're going to eat some of the meat," he said. "And the meat we're going to get this week in Tampa."

There is no question that Romney needs to deliver in his acceptance speech on Thursday, said Grooms, a first-time delegate and former gubernatorial candidate. And with his latest approval ratings coming in at less than 50 percent, Romney has some work to do to sway undecided voters.

In his speech, Romney "needs to come across as a personable guy that people can trust, and I think he's going to to do that," Grooms said. "He'll be preaching to the choir to the people inside the convention because we're all so ready to elect Mitt Romney as our next president. It's the American people who are trying to decide right now."

Romney also needs to emphasize his plan to improve the economy, Grooms said.

"The issue of the day is the economy. The issue of the day is our national debt. We're heading for a fiscal train wreck and we need an engineer who is going to steer us in the right direction," he said. "And I think folks around the country are going to focus on the economy, and we've got the right messengers to address what's wrong with our country and send a message on how to fix it."

One of those "messengers" is and Grooms said Romney boosted his standing among conservatives when he made the congressman his vice presidential pick.

"Naming Paul Ryan as running mate really does re-enegergize the party faithful," Grooms said. "There were some questions about Mitt Romney and where he stood on a couple of issues...Did he have the fire to really go in and cut the deficit and control spending?

"Those questions were set aside when he picked Paul Ryan," Grooms added. "I was proud of that choice and a lot of other conservatives were, too."