Above the stage on the floor of the Tampa Bay Times Forum, a ticker runs nonstop showing the dollars added to the national debt every second. For Jasper County native Jon Troen, this is why he is “a one issue guy.”
 

“In terms of the issues it’s great for me. I’ve been a Romney supporter since the caucuses,” he said during a phone interview Thursday from his Tampa hotel room. “I think he can turn the economy around. The convention has really focused on that, and that’s really resonated with me. They’re going after the big problems.”
 

Troen is a business operator and current president of Des Moines-, Waverly- and Newton-based Rock Communications. He entered the forum Tuesday as an observer and said that the national conventions, both Republican and Democratic, are places to “see democracy at work.” Despite one incident in which a CNN reporter was the victim of racial slurs by two convention attendees who were quickly removed from the forum, Troen said the protests have been mild and fairly uneventful at the 2012 convention.
“It’s been really civil,” he said. “Walking to the convention you’d see people chanting Obama things from balconies, but everybody has been respectful.”