TAMPA, Fla. — The Republican National Convention is finally in full-throated roar, cheering presidential nominee Mitt Romney's name at every turn in a long-sought show of unity and mocking the man he is out to defeat in November.

A soft-sided portrayal of the Republican candidate as husband and father, painted by his wife on the stage in a direct appeal to women, combined with a parade of gleeful Obama-bashers Tuesday as the GOP seized its moment after days of worry about the hurricane that simultaneously roared ashore in Louisiana — well out of sight of the gathering, and mostly out of mind for the night.

The convention's keynote speaker, the unpredictable New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, issued a broad indictment of Democrats as "disciples of yesterday's politics" who "whistle a happy tune" while taking the country off a fiscal cliff.