Imagine, if you will, the following scene tonight, during Mitt Romney's address to the Republican National Convention: the lights go out. The ominous sound of bells rings through the convention center. A spotlight appears in the center of the stage, where a puff of smoke barely conceals the sudden appearance of a single, silhouetted figure. On the floor, convention goers strain their necks, stand up, shading their eyes — is it? — can it be? Onstage, Romney is nodding his head to a barely perceptible drumbeat.

Hologram Ronald Reagan steps from the smoke and raises his arms — not in supplication, but in triumph. He unleashes a yell: "YEAHHHHH." The crowd is sobbing, ecstatic, screaming. "YOU KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THIS IS."

This scene, alas, will never happen. The rumored hologram Ronald Reagan — created by the same people who re-animated 2Pac for Coachella earlier this year — exists, but his presence has been cancelled, reportedly because the sponsors don't want to upstage the actual, flesh-and-blood candidate. Yahoo! has the scoop:

"It wasn't officially going to be part of the convention," Tony Reynolds, founder of crowdsourcing website A KickIn Crowd, told Yahoo News in a phone interview Thursday. "It was going to be outside of the convention at the Lakeland Center."

Reynolds obtained rights to a Reagan speech discussing small businesses and plans to use the hologram to promote the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act. [...]

However, Reynolds says he discussed the idea with a number of Republican activists who asked him to delay the project out of concern it would overshadow Mitt Romney's acceptance speech. [...] Reynolds said another reason he delayed the unveiling was that he didn't want the hologram to be used for partisan purposes.

No: the Reagan hologram will only be used for nonpartisan purposes. Send him and hologram 2Pac on a tour together.

[Yahoo, images via Getty]