Mitt On the Spot With Tonight's RNC Appearance

It's his big chance to define himself - or not

The speech Romney delivers at the Republican National Convention's final night in Tampa will be one of his last opportunities to sketch a portrait of who he is and what he stands for to a country whose battleground states have seen him relentlessly portrayed by the Obama campaign as a heartless corporate raider — a perception that has dented his approval ratings and made it difficult for the GOP to change the campaign narrative.

In a precious hour before a national television audience, Romney has the opportunity to connect with voters in the convention hall but also well beyond. There is a deeper, softer, and much kinder side to Romney, those who know him insist, but he provides only those closest to him with a view of it. He has run the least biographically anchored campaign of any presidential nominee in recent history, declining to present his own fleshed-out accounts of his time at Bain Capital, his time as a bishop in the Mormon church, or his term as Massachusetts governor.