What’s it looking like?
(PPP) PPP’s tracking of the Florida Republican primary wraps up with Mitt Romney at 39%, Newt Gingrich at 31%, Rick Santorum at 15%, and Ron Paul at 11%. Our three days of tracking found very little movement in the race: Romney was at 39-40% every day, Gingrich was at 31-32% every day, Santorum was at 14-15% every day, and Paul was at 9-11% every day.
(Washington Post) A new Quinnipiac University poll released Monday on the final full day of campaigning in Florida shows Romney with a 14-point lead over Gingrich, 43 percent to 29 percent, among likely GOP primary voters. That compares to a lead of 38 percent to 29 percent at the end of last week, Quinnipiac said.
Florida is a winner take all state for the primary delegates, and The Politico has 5 things to watch
1) Mitt’s margin – Gingrich needs a close race more than Romney needs a blowout victory. (especially with no debates till Feb 22)
2) Newt and women – Gingrich did well in S.C. with women, despite, as the say, the affairs and divorces. Can he do the same in Florida?
3) Hispanic Republicans – Mitt was blown out in Florida in 2008 by McCain with Hispanic voters. What happens this go-around?
4) The Panhandle and Northeast Florida – In the Panhandle and in Florida’s rural north, GOP voters are demographically similar to the South Carolinians who propelled Gingrich to victory.
5) Rick Santorum’s performance – The former Pennsylvania senator didn’t do any campaigning in the state over the weekend and then spent Monday in Missouri and Minnesota. He’s largely written off Florida, despite winning rave reviews for his debate performances last week and continuing to win some local endorsements.
That’s weird, they don’t even mention Ron Paul. Perhaps the Jewish Florida retirees don’t care for his anti-Semitism and potential abandonment of Israel while he would ignore Iran moving forward to becoming a nuclear weapons nation. Maybe people in Florida aren’t into racist writings and conspiracy theories.
Back to the PPP article
The hubbub over Romney’s tax returns early last week may have enhanced his chances in the state. The truth is that being wealthy and successful is not a liability with Republican voters- it’s a selling point. We find that 66% of primary voters have a favorable opinion of ‘rich people’ to only 8% with a negative opinion of them. All the awareness of how rich Romney is may have sent Florida Republicans a message that Romney is someone who knows what he’s doing.
and
Gingrich erred with his proposal last week for a ‘moon colony.’ Only 21% of voters support his idea while 53% are opposed and more importantly it made Gingrich look like a flake. At the beginning of last week Gingrich and Romney were seen as equally electable against Barack Obama. Now 49% see Romney as the party’s strongest candidate in the fall to 25% for Gingrich.
Gingrich has stated multiple times that he is in it for the long haul. He’s also stated multiple times that Santorum should drop out.
Truth is, both Newt and Mitt need to put the negativity aside, stop beating on each other, and push their own positives, for the most part. Stop getting into pissing matches, especially during the debates with Liberal moderators from liberal TV stations, who push them to virtual blows on purpose. Santorum should stay in, if he wants. What’s your guess regarding Florida?
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.
I think Rick Santorum has thrown his eggs into the Reomney basket as he continues to go after Newt much more then Romeny.
Why?
I suggest that with his fiscal and social far right position he is jockeying for the VP spot on Romneys ticket.
Just like the MODERATE McCain pulled the far right Palin onto his ticket to try and shore up every conservative out there……..I think Santorum is campaigning for the VP spot and he would probably be a good VP choice given he is experienced, yet untouched by scandals.
Couple things of note…..
1) Rick Santorium really hurt himself by not campaigning more in Florida. He was scheduled to make an appearance on the Space Coast and cancelled it at the last minute. No one knew why as his national campaign left the local organizers out of the informational loop.
2) The Gingrich speech on the Space Coast was much better organized and much better attended than the Romney speech. The local OWS group wanted to try and protest the speech but the protect never got off the ground.
3) The Romney speech was, as I said, less well organized and less well attended. (The attendance reflecting the hasty nature of the event.)
The GOP candidates make a clear distinction between themselves and Obama. Whether you think Newt’s idea of a moon colony is a good one or not (many believe a moon colony is necessary for deep space exploration), Newt has a vision for the country and space. Romney’s approach, on the other hand, is more of a “corporate” view – one in which he will assemble a committee and come out with a plan after that. Similar committees resulted in the “engineering camel” of the space shuttle, so there is a flaw there, but still it is a plan – an idea – a vision.
Compare that with Obama who is absolutely clueless when it comes to NASA and space. Obama has no vision and no plan other than to spend money to keep the agency running.
There is little doubt that NASA has lost its way. Originally NASA was to help bring together and coordinate efforts by companies to achieve research and goals that are not affordable by any singular company. NASA was to serve as the coordinator of these goals.
Now no one knows what NASA does. Like other government agencies, NASA has grown, but the private companies which actually do the work are laying people off. That has to be corrected. If there is no vision and no plan, NASA needs to shrink, not grow as there is nothing for them to administer.
Nasa is part of the collective despised by commie progressives as the Defense industry. It is every bit their intention of destroying every company who partakes of the defense industry or in this case those that build for NASA also build f-16’s and raptors and boats and guns and knives and they MUST BE STOPPED>
Obama is not clueless…he knows what he is doing. He knows full well what he is doing and that is destroying good jobs and Americas ability to defend herself so that he can use all that money to pay for food stamps, health care and a bazillion other socialist programs.
He knows full well what he is doing…..Obama is the most destructive president ever and he is doing all of this in plain sight……..right out in the open……and the MSM
is shouting AMEN…..praise OBAMA!!