The first full day of the Republican National Convention was heavy with female speakers and light on the red meat that normally fires up the base. Here are five things we learned from the convention's first night:

Ann Romney's speech lives up to expectations

Ann Romney spelled it out right near the top of her speech: "I want to talk to you tonight not about politics and not about party."

Instead, her mission was to present to voters a softer and warmer side of her husband, something that polls show isn't apparent to many Americans.

"I want to talk to you about the deep and abiding love I have for a man I met at a dance many years ago. And the profound love I have, and I know we share, for this country," Romney said, adding "I know this good and decent man for what he is, warm and loving and patient."

The Romney campaign sees the candidate's wife as one of his most effective surrogates and expectations were high. She lived up to them.

Romney also used the speech to portray herself as an ordinary women, regardless of her family's wealth.

"We got married and moved into a basement apartment. We walked to class together, shared the housekeeping and ate a lot of pasta and tuna fish," Romney said, describing their early years together. "Our desk was a door propped up on sawhorses. Our dining room table was a fold-down ironing board in the kitchen."

Did she do what she needed to?

"A powerful speech from Ann Romney," said CNN's Wolf Blitzer, chief anchor of the network's coverage of the convention.

CNN Chief Political Analyst David Gergen said, "Ann Romney added to the vote that Mitt Romney is already likely to get. That was very, very important. Ann Romney's speech has a chance to be remembered for a long time."

CNN Chief Political Correspondent Candy Crowley, anchor of "State of the Union," agreed, saying "I think Ann Romney gave a speech people will remember.

CNN contributor and former George W. Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said, "She gave speech from a mom's point of view. Moms can understand" what she was saying.

No more 'presumptive'

To roaring cheers, the New Jersey delegation put Mitt Romney over the 1,144-delegate threshold, officially making him the GOP challenger against President Barack Obama. The final tally gave the former Massachusetts governor 2,061 delegates, with Rep. Ron Paul of Texas a distant second at 190 and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania with nine votes.

When Santorum suspended his bid for the Republican nomination in early April, Romney became the "presumptive" nominee. Now, four months later, the adjective is needed no more.

While it was a formality, the roll call did have a bit of drama, as it was briefly interrupted by protests from Paul supporters from the Maine delegation. And the Paul votes were not announced from the podium. The episodes highlighted the continuing bad blood between Paul supporters and other grassroots conservatives and Romney backers.

One of the missions of the convention is to have Republicans further close ranks behind their nominee. But how happy are Republicans with Romney as their nominee?

Hours before the start of the roll call, a new CNN/ORC International poll indicated that a minority in the GOP would still like to see someone else as their nominee.

Nearly seven in 10 Republicans are happy with Romney and the remainder say they would rather see someone else at the top of the ticket. While that might sound bad, it's pretty good compared to the previous GOP nominee. In mid-August, 2008, more than four in 10 Republicans said they would prefer someone other than Sen. John McCain at the top of the ticket.

While this convention has finally, officially and formally brought an end to the race for the GOP nomination, it apparently hasn't brought an end to the displeasure felt by a small minority in the party.

Paul supporters fight to the bitter end

The first full day of convention proceedings went largely without a glitch, except for the loud, angry protests from supporters of Ron Paul, whose third bid for the Republican presidential nomination officially came to an end Tuesday.

Paul's supporters were angry that their candidate wasn't speaking from the podium at his party's official gathering. They were angry that 10 of Paul's 20 delegates from Maine were replaced with delegates for Romney. And they were angry that the GOP changed its party rules to make grassroots campaign efforts like Paul's more difficult in the future.

Those new rules, pushed last week by members of Romney's campaign, will compel states to assign delegates according to statewide vote, making it harder for candidates like Paul to garner delegates as the primaries wear on. The rule change also drew the ire of tea party groups, who say it represents a power grab by the GOP establishment seeking to squelch outside voices.