ORLANDO, FL – With just under 36 hours to go before polls officially open in Florida, Mitt Romney has widened his lead over Newt Gingrich by a double digit margin. The new numbers from the NBC/Marist poll, which were released Sunday, show the former Massachusetts governor with a 15 point lead over the former Speaker of the House.
Romney’s wide lead is due in part to the endless ads he’s been running in the state attacking Gingrich’s ties to Freddie and Fannie Mac, as well as his connection with Ronald Reagan. He’s outspent Gingrich on the airwaves 5 to 1 and 15 to 1 in the state overall.
So what has helped the Mitt surge after a disappointing loss in South Carolina?
For one, I think Florida is a natural fit for Romney. It’s more moderate than South Carolina and the state’s massive size and diverse population favors campaigns with organization and money, both of which Romney has in spades.
I also believe Mitt learned another valuable lesson from South Carolina — not to underestimate a Newt comeback. Gingrich has proven to be one of the most resilient campaigners in recent memory. How many times have we thought his campaign was left for dead, only to see him rebound with astonishing victories? Romney now knows that he needs a knockout and he has shown no signs of letting Newt off the rope. The campaign has been sending surrogates to Gingrich events and making themselves available to the media to dispel the Speaker’s achievements. The tactic has caused several skirmishes between campaign staff according to reports.
Newt also hasn’t been helping himself. After dominating the South Carolina debates, the former Speaker has committed a series of unforced errors and has appeared almost flat-footed onstage. In a state which leads the country in unemployment and foreclosures, the Speaker has found himself talking about moon colonies and his ties to Ronald Reagan. It will be interesting to see if Newt can get back to his economic message in the final hours before voting.
If Newt has a chance to pulling a Florida victory out of his hat, it will be because of the Tea Party (many of which are working off-the-radar). Though the mainstream media has written off the Tea Party as dead, conservative activists will play a large part in the elections Tuesday. Romney has all but refused to meet with Tea Party activists and I’m sure many of them don’t take kindly to the news that a Romney staffer is behind efforts to redistrict Congressman Allen West out of office.
Do you think that Gingrich will be able to make it close? Or has Darth Romney won the day?
Don’t forget to enter your predictions into PJ Media’s Nostradamus contest here. You could also end up a winner Tuesday night.
Newt has made too many personal attacks against Romney to be taken seriously. He definitely hasn’t been close enough to Ronald Reagan to follow his 11th Commandment: thou shalt not attack a fellow Republican. But the worst part is that most of the attacks are from the left, accusing Romney of being a capitalist, et al. With the radical authoritarian agenda of the current administration, we need a candidate who knows that free minds and free markets are superior to government control. Newt’s attacks from the left show he doesn’t get it.
“Romney has all but refused to meet with Tea Party activists and”
I don’t know if this is true, but my gut instinct has been screaming that Mitt Romney will absolutely end up blowing off the Tea Party, so this is of a piece. Support him at your peril. Personally, at this moment in time I’ve written this election and the GOP in general off. Your mileage may vary, but my view is based on the belief that Romney is only going to respond to brute force, so tha5 is the oath ti pursue.
“so that is the path to pursue”
Romney may indeed win. After all, the Institutional Republican Party has determined that he will be the candidate despite the wishes of the party membership. But he also may find that while he can be nominated without reference to the proles, getting elected without them may be another story. And the Institutionals may find that the victory is truly Pyrrhic.
Subotai Bahadur
Mitt is winning because he’s shown that he can attack and that he can attack effectively. He’s shown he can fight and he’s about to show that he can win.
All Romney needs to seal his Florida victory is Charlie Crist’s endorsement.
Why does he need Charlie Crist? He’s got Mario Rubio, who only a few months ago was being championed by the Tea Party as the perfect example of a Tea Party candidate.
Oh wait, I forgot, Mario Rubio is part of “The Establishment”. Its all clear to me now…
Again, how exactly is Romney the establishment candidate? He’s not the one that lives in Washington working for think tanks and lobbying. He was a governor, and that’s pretty much it. OMG, it was a liberal state, so OMG, he’s not a conservative. Well, no, he is a moderate. But that doesn’t mean he’s establishment.
And frankly, the Tea Party has lost its mind supporting Gingrich, who is more progressive than Obama. Read about all the crazy ideas he’s promoted in the past, not at the state level, but on the federal level.
Romney is the establishment candidate because he’s the one they want, the one they are attempting to impose from the top down. Newt is not because he has not been in power for 14 or so years, and when he was pitched it was on the basis of hopelessly bogus charges which were promulgated by the GOP back benchers, the actual establishment.
“Well, no, he is a moderate.”
No, he is a progressive liberal.
“But that doesn’t mean he’s establishment.”
No, the fact he supports business as usual by nature and has promised not to upset their apple carts makes him the establishment’s candidate.
“And frankly, the Tea Party has lost its mind supporting Gingrich, who is more progressive than Obama.”
That’s dumb. Gingrich is the only man to actually force the shrinkage of government, to bend the growth curve down, for 60 or 80 years. Even Reagan couldn’t get it done.
“Read about all the crazy ideas he’s promoted in the past, not at the state level, but on the federal level.”
Hey, since he’s going to be elected on the backs of the Tea Party and overthrow the establishment, I expect some the crazy ideas we’ll get out of him are a flat tax, maybe even with almost no deductions. Maybe private accounts instead of Socialist Insecurity. Just to name a few.
He’ll dance with those who brung ‘im.
YOu know in the New Testament is it says that in the last days bad will be called good and good will be called bad…
Newt Gingrich is provably evil… his entire life has been spent doing evil. And tricking lots of people that character doesn’t matter, while at the same time going after other people’s character.
When you imply that the evil empire is behind Romney… you call him evil.
Calling bad good, and good bad.
Did you set out to fulfill prophecy?
Romney is claimed to be pure as the driven snow, but I know he is evil.
Romney is evil because he supports business as usual, and business as usual is what laid us low. He is for gun control, government run healthcare, thinks mankind is warming the planet, and between Romneycare and the bailouts, he’s quite anti-capitalist, anti-freedom.
Romney is evil, he’s promising to do evil things if elected, just the way we’ve been doing.
Gingrich is not evil. He isn’t perfect. But he’s not promising to do evil in office the way Romney is. When he last had power in Washington–before being thrown out on the basis of lies, you know, false witness–he made government smaller.
Romney’s only made it bigger wherever he went.
Romney is evil.
Wow, PJMedia is kinda becoming a joke with the blind Newt-infatuation and Romney Derangement, the tin-foil hat “Evil Establishment” obsession, and especially the delusional idea that *Newt Gingrich* of all people (it’s hard to imagine a more flawed candidate with more baggage & hypocrisy) is to be the Tea Party’s Luke Skywalker, the noble renegade true conservative candidate who will take down the GOP Death Star (obviously a more important target to take down than Obama) or die trying (along with the rest of us, I suppose).
Look, it’s fine to have mostly Newt-fans among the writers here, and harsh criticism of Romney, but please, the lack of even a pretense of objectivity and clear-sighted analysis (as opposed to simplistic cheerleading and Palinesque “down with the establishment” demagogy) is getting kinda ludicrous. I value this site, so it saddens me to see it lose its credibility.
It doesn’t help that I suspect half the comments here (i.e. of the “give me Obama over Romney, Newt or death” variety) are mobys anyway.
I’m making this comment at this post because it’s at the top of the page at the moment, but I could’ve just as well made it at any of the other rah-rah Gingrich posts on this page. Like I said, it’s fair to advocate for Gingrich, go for it (though I think you’re sadly misguided)… but this is just a little unseemly, dontcha think?
In my response to #6 and #7, I have not written one thing as a fact which is not true.
Having read some of the comments, I am going to amplify what I feel, so the Romney supporters will be under no illusions.
I am not a Newt Gingrinch man. I am fully aware of his issues. On the other hand, I am fully aware of Romney’s, and thus am not a Romney man either. And here is my principal reason why I at least look askance at him–the man is not at heart a Constitutional Conservative or a classic liberal, in the sense that it is what drives him and is what can allow one to predict his future actions.
What drives him? Three things, I think. One, he is not a Democrat, by clear choice. That says something. Two, he wants to be President. Three, he offers a chance for Mormonism to become fully part of the mainstream. All those things would lead me to believe that it would be logical for him to try to coopt the standard GOP way of doing business, not challenge it, because the number one goal is to become President. Actually doing things while in office is secondary, beyond general executive-ship. .
If you are a Tea Party type what I think you should take away is that you have absolutely got to keep your powder dry with this guy, because he is only going to go as far as what he either personally wants (a seemingly fairly limited list), or what the current requirements of any situation dictate, based upon the hard *realized* political strength existing of forecast. In other words, he will be a standard issue Republican, which may be all that is needed for the moment.
In the larger scheme of things, that means he is a stopgap, not a solution–and probably an obstacle at some point. And that means he only should get so much rope, and no more. If he understands that the cause of liberty and constitutional conservatism/classic liberalism can in fact cause him enormous problems, he will be alright. If not, if he thinks the summa of all things he needs to cater to is those in positions of influence and power right now, he will find he have difficulties, for he simply is not a great man of history and therefore cannot rule out of existence a historical force (which is what the Tea Party is. It may or may not be enough of one to eventually become the norm, but the fact remains that it actually is a fairly broad-based part of the populace, whereas Mitt Romney is just one guy with money who is “leading” only because the other candidates are so weak. Right now, he will have the upper hand, but it is a situation that could change).
In other words, as with all of us, Mitt Romney would do well to have a little humility, because unmitigated arrogance as either nominee or President will cause grief, and rightfully so. Or in other words, if he thinks he can be elected or administer without the Tea Party, I am for one perfectly willing for him to get the opportunity to see how well that idea works in the long run.
We have an evil, empty suit in the White House. The country is on the skids.
We have a super-wealthy candidate with a background more liberal than conservative. Romney. And another with personal baggage, but a heart and head that is leagues above Romney. One with experience. Ideas. Dedication. I repeat a phrase used before: You can’t pound a nail with a tack hammer. Go Newt !!
God Bless the U S A !!!!
On FNC this a.m. already a third of Floridians have voted. This would seem to be a good harbinger for Romney since most of these votes were probably cast before the debates. I think Romney wins this no problem. If he wins the primaries I’ll hold my nose and vote for him in the general; hoping that down ticket races can elect more fiscally conservative candidates to put a brake on Romney. I would see Romney’s presidency as a place holder until the 2016 election. If Romney wants 2 terms he better not screw around and let business as usual go on. That’s how I see Romney – he likes to manage but I don’t think he’ll change things all that much.
You would think we would be singing Romney’s praises by now.
We should be crowing about his record as governor of Massachusetts.
We should have 34 of the 54 planks in his hard-hitting agenda memorized.
We should know all of the praiseworth details of his Bain career. We should be able to list client by client how he reset strategies, cut wasteful spending, opened new markets, created new products, improved customer service, out-maneuvered competition, rejuvinated workforces.
We should know how his key proposals, like Romneycare and job creation work and how they will make the country better a better place.
It must be us. It must be our fault that we can’t think of a single positive thing that he has done in his career other than create 100,000 jobs and give health care to the previously oppressed citizens of Massachusetts.
In the spirit of #9 Loose Cannon‘s explanation.
1) I also know that Newt Gingrich is deeply flawed. My candidate of choice is not in the running. And like much of the base, I have been looking for an acceptable substitute. Like much of the base, I have my own standards of what is acceptable, who could I hold my nose and vote for. And there are those who do not meet those standards. Like much of the base, Willard Mitt Romney does not meet those standards and I would not consider him any more than I would support the Democrats.
2) Newt, for all the flaws and collaborations with the enemy, will FIGHT the enemy. He has a record of doing so. I have been asking Romney supporters one question, and not one has come up with an answer: “Name on issue in his 20 years of being a professional politician, 4 years of which he was in office, where he dug in his heels with a conservative stand and did not end up giving in to the Democrats”. Anything, any issue.
3) Newt, for all the flaws and collaborations with the enemy, has a record of a conservative ideology through his political life. Romney bragged about being a “moderate progressive” and ran away from Ronald Reagan.
4) Newt, for all the flaws and collaborations with the enemy, did not oppose the TEA Party, and supported its formation. Romney has kept as far away as he could from the TEA Party and the Conservative Base, criticized them, and supported/supports the government bailouts that helped instigate the TEA Party. And Romney’s prime support comes from the Institutional Republicans who are and have worked to defeat TEA Party candidates in both primaries and general elections, and who are trying to redistrict TEA Party Republican Congressmen out of their seats as we speak.
5) The lines have been drawn between the Institutional Republicans and the TEA Party/Patriot movement. We really are not one party anymore, nor will we be again I suspect. I am amazed that Gingrich ended up on our side of the line. At least he has the right enemies.
6) Let me add this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WdkEc4mZF0
Subotai Bahadur