tweets in just a minute. carmen is on the democrats' line in washington d.c. caller: i am 65 years old, and i have been voting since i was 18. i always voted, no matter who was running. i am horrified at the mentality of the republicans that collier station. i listen to them in the morning on c-span, but is it the fact that they are just dumb, stupid, evil? host: what is it particularly that you hear from the republicans? caller: he wants education. romney said forget education. in other words, we don't need it. and the health care.

allowing students to say on their parents until they are 26 years old. they can stay on their parents' health care role until they are 26. ole is a republican caller in utah. go ahead with your comments. caller: and as i listen to barack obama's become he is getting to the point where he is getting very desperate in his speech. one point that i wanted to make is that he talks about how republicans want to cut taxes and he says it like it is a bad thing. he made a comment in the speech about how he was going to be able -- they were going to add to the deficit. what he does not say is that he

is already adding to the deficit every single day, every minute, with no end in sight. he is a man of no solutions. " for barack obama is a vote for the same big deficits. he talked about how he took away the student loans from the middle men at the banks. how many jobs did that cost the banks when he did that to the government? this man believes the government is the answer and the government can make our decisions for us. we believe that god is the only one that is endowed us with that. host: the wall street journal noted that the president won 66% of the 18-24-year-old boat in 2008.

next up is shirley min las vegas. welcome to the conversation on the republican line. caller: thanks for taking my call. i just listened to president obama's speech, and he talks very well about the college students, but what about the jobs are the ones who have finished college that cannot find jobs? he doesn't mention that. i think the democrats are running a very negative campaign, and yet in his speech he said about how much money they are going to spend. i think they are above standard, and i don't think they were very negative at all, and watching the republican debate. that is all i have to say. host: about 10 more minutes of your phone calls. our coverage tonight of the 2012 republican convention in tampa gets underway at 6:00.

gavel-to-gavel coverage starts at 7:00. we are taking your calls about the president's speech at uva. mitt romney was nominated last night and the vice-presidential nomination tonight, with paul ryan speaking later in the evening. we will tell you about our schedule in just a bit. wallace is on the democrat line. caller: thank you for taking my call. instead of listening to the republicans, it is just a bunch of reid ribble of hate coming out of that party. -- it is just a bunch of dribble coming out of that party. if obama was that beatable, why is the a team going up against him? i think they know that willard

is a sacrificial lamb for 2012. host: the think would be the a team to go up against barack obama? caller: chris christie, marco rubio, even jeb bush, because of his last name. i think he wanted to wait another round. that is what i would consider the a team. i did not like willard to start. that shows meet the level of intelligence, or lack thereof, in the republican party. host: the convention heard from rick santorum last night. it all gets underway at 7:00 eastern. mitch mcconnell and senator rand paul kentucky will speak. you've it -- you will see a short tribute to ron paul, the former presidential candidate. senator john mccain of arizona, followed by senator john thune

and rob portman of ohio. at 9:00, the porter regan governor, tim pawlenty, former republican presidential candidate, and mike huckabee, who ran in 2008. wrapping up this evening, condoleezza rice, the former secretary of state, former national security adviser to president bush, susana martinez, the governor of new mexico, and the vice presidential nominee, paul ryan, will wrap up the evening tonight. all that coming up live on pre convention coverage at 6:00, gavel-to-gavel coverage at 7:00, live from tampa. omar is on the independent line. caller: i just wanted to say, president obama talking to today's youth, i thought he did a great job.

since i am independent, he is the best president next to ron paul. i just think he does a great job with our youth, and i am thankful for it. host: he is emphasizing issues like education and same-sex marriage. he received 66% of the vote in 2008. next up is vittori in stockton, california, on our republican line. caller: i just had a couple of commons. the last thing that the president said, give me four more years and we can finish what we started. he has done us into a deep hole and he is just learning to cover us up completely with that. i think it is a shame what he is doing to the country. he doesn't have a vision for our

country because he wasn't raised here. he has a totally different outlook. he is doing it the chicago away. he should not be doing his campaign right now. he should be going over to louisiana and worrying about the people that are getting hit. the commentators can be out there standing in the water, but he needs to be there. his life is going on david letterman tonight. she should really cancel that -- his wife is going on david letterman tonight. host: the hurricane was downgraded to tropical storm, but there is still a great deal of flooding going on in louisiana. caller: i believe obama is doing a great job. the need for " -- any more than

four years to get things back into shape. when he came into office, america was already in a whole. i would love to go to college. everybody cannot afford college right now. we are fighting just regular bills out here. we are fighting for day-to-day living here, trying to live from paycheck to paycheck, not being able to get a job. what we have to keep going over to other countries to get resources for them when we can survive over here? at least he could take 26 states and identify energy sources in 26 states, and 5000 jobs could come out of that in each state. that is a lot for people right now.

host: on the independent line, as we take a walk through the access areas in the forum in tampa. caller: i want to give a shout out to all the people let c- span. you do a great job. i am from a family of long-term traditional republicans. this year i am voting for president obama, because i think it is an insult and a disgrace to support a man who is a serial draft dodger, who supported sending other people's children to war in vietnam and went to live in paris for 31 months. i will not support him for that very reason alone. there are many, many others. host: how did you vote in 2008? caller: i am ashamed to admit this, but i did not vote.

i was torn, because i probably would have voted for mccain, but i was concerned about his choice for vice president. host: but not voting is not an option for you this time around? caller: absolutely not. host: matt is on the republican line. go ahead. caller: i am the college republican chairman at uva. we were actually holding an opposition rally here today in charlottesville. i caught the tail end of the speech after i got back. it was interesting to me, the fax that he did not report on. since obama took office in 2009, the average cost of tuition has

increased 25%, and the number of young americans living in poverty has increased by 23%. the president just does not understand that if he wants to help out college students, he's got to get recent college graduates back to work. i think what of your earlier years mention that. we cannot stay at this pace. the president has had for years and has not capitalized on it. we need to get mitt romney in their so that we can get some of this stuff changed. host: what you are are you in? caller: i will be in my third year this year. i took over as head of the college republicans at the end of last april. host: what is your sense of how the student body use the election this year? caller: we had an activities there on monday.

we were getting way more people signing up for the republicans. the university of virginia actually rejected the obama campaign request to hold it on the grounds. that is why the event was held at the pavilion of campus today. the event was not on grounds at all today because the university rejected the request. it was interesting because -- st: you said you had a counter rally. was that allowed to be held on campus? caller: no, we had that at a different part of downtown. we had a great turnout, lots of great speakers, including a contributor on fox news a, as well as be debby jackson.

we had a lot of people come out. host: thanks for your input. sue is in chicago. you'll get the last word on the democrats' line. go ahead with your comments. caller: i appreciate president obama because he has helped a lot of people on social security and medicaid. he has helped me with my prescriptions. i feel that my young grandchildren will be able to go to college because obama has made it perfectly clear for everybody in the state of illinois and other places. mitt romney, i listened to his campaign talk last night and some of the comments that people have made about him, and i feel that they need to get real and listen to what obama does. this year i will vote again for obama. host: thanks for all your calls

and tweets. we'll have more coming up in our pre election coverage, getting ready for the tampa bay times forum. you can watch all of that on our convention hub and you can watch what you missed at c-span.org. you can comment or watch the comments at our twittered stream, all that at this c-span convention hub. one of the speech you will find is from last night, former senator and former presidential candidate rick santorum. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome rick santorum. [applause] >> thank you.

thank you very much. thank you. bless you. thank you, pennsylvania. it is great honor for me to be here tonight, with the love of my life, karen, over here. and my 93-year-old mother from florida. and some of my children. my oldest son, john, wanted to be here tonight, but he is a first-year cadet at the citadel. [applause] so i just want to say to you, i am proud of you, son. thank you. i am a first-generation american.

at the age of seven, my dad came to johnstown, pa., from the mountains of northern italy, on a ship named providence. how providential, that one day his son would announce for president, just down the road from the deep mines where his father, my grandfather, mind:-- mined coal until he was 70 years old. when my grandfather died, i remember kneeling at his casket and not being able to take my eyes of his thick, strong hands, hands that but his path in life and days hit -- gave his family chance at living the american dream. working the minds may not have been a dream he ever dreamed. i never dared to ask him, but i

think his answer would have been that america gave him more than he had ever hoped. america believed in him. that is why he believed in america. [applause] my grandfather, like millions of other immigrants, did not come here for some government guarantee of income equality, or government benefits to take care of his family. in 1923, there were no government benefits for immigrants except one, freedom. under president obama, the dream of freedom and opportunity has become a nightmare of dependency, with almost half of americans receiving some sort of government assistance. it is no surprise fewer and

fewer americans are achieving their dreams, and more and more parents are concerned their children will not realize there's. president obama spent four years and borrowed five trillion dollars trying to convince you that he could make things better for you, to put your trust in him and the government to take care of every problem. the results -- massive debt, anemic growth, and millions more unemployed. the president of the plan did not work for america, because that is not how america works. in america, we believe in freedom and responsibility that comes with got to work hard to make the dream of reaching our god-given potential come true.

we believe that