Tampa, Fla., has many nicknames. There’s “Cigar City,” after its chief export. Then there’s “the Strip Club Capital of the United States,” which speaks for itself. Now a new label is being assigned to the city: site of the 2012 Republican National Convention. As Lloyd Grove writes in Newsweek, Tampa carries a rich history of seediness—notorious mob kings, lap-dancing parlors, and more—making it, despite its plethora of mega-churches and reputation for social conservatism, an unusual venue for the coming-out party of buttoned-down Mormon presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and his straight-out-of-Mayberry running mate Paul Ryan.
Photographer Charles Ommanney, on assignment for Newsweek, takes a look at the city.