The Republicans in the Tampa convention hall got a good look Tuesday night at Mia Love, and found out what that growing excitement swelling up around her Utah 4^th District congressional bid is all about.

At the end, it wasn’t just the Utah delegation standing and cheering her, it was most of the delegates who got to their seats early in the convention’s first evening session.

It was a polished, professional and impassioned address, interrupted several times with cheers and once by extended duel chants of “USA, USA” and “WE BUILT IT.”

Being one of the few Black Americans to address the convention, it may not have been unexpected that Love, whose parents were immigrants to the United States, would bring up shadows of civil rights struggles.

She also touched on her adopted LDS heritage, although it may have taken a Utahn or member of the Mormon Church to pick up on those references.

In a campaign video that played just before Love addressed the convention at 5:20 p.m. Mountain Time, she said that one of her favorite meanings of the word “freedom” is “agency” – the right to succeed and the right to fail as individuals, without government trying to pick winners and losers.

Free agency is a tenant of the Mormon religion.

She spoke about how her parents, when she went off to collage, telling her that she was not going to be a burden on society, but add to it -- as they themselves did.

“The American dream is not just my story,” she said. “It isn’t just your story. It is our story.

“It’s a story of human struggles, standing up and striving for more.

“Our story has been told for over 200 years. With small steps and great strides. From a woman on a bus (Rosa Parks); to a man with a dream (the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.); from the bravery of the greatest generation to the innovators and entrepreneurs of today.

“This is our story. This is our America. This is the America we know because we built it.”

It’s unclear how many 4^th District voters could tune in at 5:30 last night.

But you can count on Love’s address being up on her web site and parts of it becoming campaign ads – either paid for by her own campaign, the National Republican Congressional Committee (which has reserved hundreds of thousands of dollars in TV ad time) or any number of pro-Love independent group expenditures.

And you won’t see her opponent – 12-year incumbent Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson – showing any highlights of him at next week’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.

Matheson’s never been to a National Democratic Convention and he’s not going this year, either.

Smiling, and clearly enjoying her several minutes on the big stand and in the spotlight, Love said: “Mr. President (Obama), I’m here to tell you that the American people are awake; and we’re not buying what you are selling in 2012.”

However, Love still trails Matheson, a popular moderate to conservative Democrat who is jumping from his 2^nd District following a GOP-controlled redistricting to the new 4^th District, by double digits in recent polls.

But Matheson is hovering around 50 percent of the vote.

And as quickly as GOP opponents have closed on Matheson toward the end of races in several previous elections, Love – bolstered by her speech Tuesday – still has time to make a dash at him.

“With Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan,” she shouted at her speech’s end, “We can restore and revive that American story we know and love. The world will know it. Our children will tell it. And our grandchildren will possess it for years to come.

“This is our time. We truly are the best last hope on Earth.”

And with a well delivered and received speech – clips galore in her pocket – Love now will try to run down Matheson’s lead these final two months.

We’ll see if she, and her supporters, both in Utah and nationally, will have the steam to make Utah’s U.S. House delegation all Republican again.