With the I-4 Corridor being one of the must-win areas of the Sunshine State, all the three remaining candidates who are still competing in Florida are hitting the area hard. Both Governor Romney and Speaker Gingrich have events here today and tomorrow. I was lucky in that tonight’s Romney event was at a time I could go to. So, with that in mind, here are a few observations.
First, there were around 500 people showed up to the factory which have proven the backdrop for many Romney events recently. What was important about this plant was that Lanco Paints are headquartered in Puerto Rico and one of the two surrogates with Romney was Governor Luis Fortuño of Puerto Rico. This is especially critical in Orlando since Orange County has one of the highest percentages of Puerto Ricans in the whole state. Governor Fortuño gave a solid speech, and he certainly has charisma. At the very least the Puerto Rican Governor should be given a good speaking slot at the convention.
The other surrogate with Romney was Senator John McCain. All those Republicans who supposedly don’t like McCain were nowhere to be seen tonight. The Senator was given an enthusiastic reception by the crowd. Calling himself the warm-up act, McCain told jokes. For instance he said that after he lost the election he slept like a baby “I woke up every two hours and cried”. He also called for an end to debates, saying 19 was enough and that it was distracting the candidates from actually going out to meet voters.
Governor Romney himself gave a very good speech. He shot one zinger at Gingrich saying how the Speaker complained after Monday about the debate audience being too quiet, but after last night that the crowd was too loud. Other than that, the Governor focused on President Obama, calling him out of touch and full of broken promises; more specifically using the State of the Union as a cudgel to go after the President. Attacking the President on Solyndra, excessive regulations, taxation and particularly crony-capitalism Romney forcefully advocated for free-market capitalism without excessive government regulation. This was an economy-based speech and the crowd responded well.
As for the crowd itself, it was as diverse as everyone says Florida is. There were a lot of Hispanic voters, some Africa-America voters, seniors, young people, and families. The people I talked to before the event had sky-high optimism about the Governor’s chances. Everyone was pleased with his debate performance and everyone believes he is going to win the Florida primary. The crowd believed he’s a winner and they are happy to back the winner.
Tomorrow night, I’ll be at the Orange County Lincoln Day Dinner where the guest speaker is none other than Speaker Newt Gingrich. I’ll do a write up for you all about that too. It’s good to be in the center of the political universe for the next few days.
January 27th, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Thanks for the write up- Does anyone have anything planned Sunday, Monday, Tuesday? I’m in town for a business meeting and could maybe catch something
January 27th, 2012 at 9:47 pm
#1:
Not sure what’s open to the public vs being a ticketed event.
January 27th, 2012 at 9:47 pm
Tomorrow night Newt is keynote speaker here in Palm Beach County at the Lincoln Day dinner to which I’m attending.
Two places at once?
Give em hell Mitt!
January 27th, 2012 at 9:48 pm
I wonder if Newt will be his usual whiney self tomorrow, or if he will make an effort to look Presidential.
January 27th, 2012 at 9:51 pm
Orange County was a very interesting and important county in ’10. Marco Rubio outperformed Rick Scott by about 4 points in Orange and Osceola, one suspects, because of his strength with Hispanic voters. That’s going to be critically important in ’12 because we’re not going to end up with such a large enthusiasm gap in Florida this go around. Scott performed well below past winning GOP campaigns in Orange (5 points behind Bush ’00 and 7 points behind Bush ’04) and a nominee Romney has little chance of reconstituting the coalition which came out for Scott (well, for Rubio mostly).
January 27th, 2012 at 9:52 pm
Awesome recap! Thanks Jonathan!
January 27th, 2012 at 9:55 pm
#5:
What’ll be interesting is the dynamics of the Puerto Rican sub-set of Hispanic voters. While most Puerto Ricans are Democrat, the Republican Party is smart enough to have Puerto Rican elected officials in the county. If Romney has Governor Fortuno and Senator Rubio stumping for him in the Puerto Rican and Cuban areas respectively, then Romney might be able to cut into Obama’s Hispanic vote. He doesn’t have to get a near-majority of their votes, but cutting into the President’s vote might be enough to tip the state to Romney.
January 27th, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Thanks Johnathan I enjoyed reading your account
January 27th, 2012 at 10:05 pm
Newt and his supporters have the GOP scared to death. The battle lines are drawn.
Rush, Palin, Levin and Hannity are on one side: The anti-intellectual, anti-Establishment, Southern, so-called “conservatives” vs. the other side: the North East sane, intelligent “Establishment” dedicated to not only beating Obama, but actually putting someone in the White House that is not a loon.
http://mobile.politico.com/iphone/story/0112/72084.html
But will the ABR/TP/Teavangelicals be dissuaded? Or will they do like they did with Cain? Double down in the face of evidence that this man should never get near the Oval Office. I heard a caller today on Medved, who said: “The more they pick on Newt, the more determined I am to vote for him.”
The rap on these folks, who gave us Palin, O’Donnell, Angle and some guy who lost, is that they are stupid. They are doing nothing to dispell the notion.
Look for Newt to be absolutely dazzling at his rally tomorrow.
January 27th, 2012 at 10:07 pm
Just show up and tell them you want to donate to Mitt’s campaign.
January 27th, 2012 at 10:23 pm
I read a post by Mona Charen over at NRO in which she demanded to know why some people insist Gingrich is more Conservative than Mitt. “Based on what?” she said. She rattled off a host of Gingrich’s sins concerning Conservatism and posited that Mitt would be a far more Conservative President than most give him credit for.
I can sympathize. For one thing, he’s the only Conservative who can get elected.
January 27th, 2012 at 10:24 pm
Will there any polls out tomorrow that show the impact of Thursday’s debate?
January 27th, 2012 at 10:29 pm
12 Should be, but the only way I know about any poll is when it’s published.
January 27th, 2012 at 10:37 pm
I imagine we’ll really see the polls trickling in on Sunday. Lots of polling companies have been relatively burned by the tendency of momentum to shift so quickly this primary season. There’s a decent chance that a poll that comes out Saturday will be outdated by Tuesday. Sunday and Monday, even Tuesday Morning, are better bets for polling companies. I know PPP goes back in the field tomorrow which means it’ll either come out Sunday night or Monday morning (they always do 2-day polls).
January 27th, 2012 at 10:41 pm
Go Mitt!
January 27th, 2012 at 11:02 pm
Does anyone know how many people have voted already in Fl? I know they are doing early voting now but does Fl count the absentee votes? Some states don’t unless it’s a close election.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:14 pm
Early voting began statewide on Saturday (ends this Saturday I think), and as of Friday morning, 187,974 ballots were cast, according to the Florida Department of State, which runs the division of elections.
In addition, more than 520,000 people have requested and were sent absentee ballots, and as of Friday morning 274,767 were received by election officials.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:15 pm
So that is total 463k votes by Friday morning.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:18 pm
Thanks for the “embedded” report Jonathan…
January 27th, 2012 at 11:24 pm
Jonathan, it’s posts like this that keep blogs interesting. Nice job!
I saw the event on CNN live stream, and you described it perfectly.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:27 pm
#20: MassCon. By the time I saw your link, it was too late. Do you have a link where it can be watched now?
January 27th, 2012 at 11:38 pm
21
No, I have no idea where to find it. Try going to CNN’s site and clicking “video.” I doubt they posted it though.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:41 pm
#22: Gracias. (From here on out I’m going to use the language of the ghetto.)
January 27th, 2012 at 11:46 pm
23
Ha!
January 27th, 2012 at 11:51 pm
I have to wonder what place McCain might have in the Romney administration. Secretary of State? Secretary of Defense? Secretary of Transportation? Secretary of Homeland Security? Secretary of the Interior? Department of Veterans Affairs?
Any thoughts?
January 27th, 2012 at 11:54 pm
McCain great Sec’y Defense
January 28th, 2012 at 12:06 am
Gingrich is on Gretta just saying over and over that Romney is a liar. Then he says you have to remain dignified in the debates, then he criticized the republican party. I’m so sick of this guy.
January 28th, 2012 at 12:14 am
#25: McCain, according to Mitt, is “the lion of the Senate.” He still has four more years and then will probably retire. He’s really showing his age at the Mitt rallies it seems to me. McCain will stay in the Senate IMO. He wields more power there than anywhere. Maybe. I don’t know seriously he’s taken at this point.
January 28th, 2012 at 12:20 am
#27 So funny. It’s been Newt that’s been called out for a liar, twice by Rubio and now by Huckabee.
The problem we have is that the “conservatives” are having a tizzy fit that “Elite/Establishment” Mitt is getting the better of Newt (as well he should.) with a ton of help from his friends.
Newt has become the last ABR and the SoCon/Teavangelical/self-declared conservatives are going to back him until their dying breath. Palin talks about “elites” as if they were pig poo. I guess Peggy Noonan should have been nicer to Palin. Payback time. And Palin is going to make them/us pay.
Palin is outraged that the Tea Party has been “disenfranchised” and they are not going to put up with it. I guess they found their white knight in nutty Newty.
January 28th, 2012 at 12:39 am
Received an invite to attend here, but am currently overseas. Glad to hear the crowd was diverse and enthusiastic. Have already voted absentee for Romney. Go Mitt! You are the man!
January 28th, 2012 at 2:12 am
Newt is disgusting. He is saying the most disgusting things about Mitt, but can’t point to any specifics at all. I wish we had some real journalists in this country who would hold his feet to the fire. It is amazing how recklessly he can attack someone’s character and never once be asked what Romney is lying about.
January 28th, 2012 at 4:07 am
9# That link was fascinating. Thanks, what an objective and capsulated way to describe a talented but dangerously contradictory man. It was first hand, factual and in many ways sad. Newt does not deserve a pass and while he needs to get hammered to get out,he still needs to handled gently after he leaves. If he were on top of the ticket I would not vote for it, even if Romny were VP. There must be a pre-requisite line of basic decency that is non negotiable., but perhaps there are some mental/emotional challenges that newt faces that do call for some compassion after he is out and the country is not in harms way.
The account about Steve Largent was edifying and entertaining. What a contrast. Character does matter
January 28th, 2012 at 4:42 am
You guys want to get a smell of a scummy, lying Grigrich supporter?
Read this guy’s dump truck full of crap article.
I just hate Steve Deace…..He gives evangelicals a putrid name….
http://townhall.com/columnists/stevedeace/2012/01/28/mitt_romney_trail_blazer
January 28th, 2012 at 6:20 am
It’s strange that people like Rush, Hannity and the other so called leaders of the conservative movement are willing to lie and look the other way when their credibility is on the line for someone like Newt Gingrich.
January 28th, 2012 at 6:36 am
Thank you for doing this!! I’ll be following your field reports the next few days.
Is this Jonathan H? If so, hello! Been a while since we talked last.
January 28th, 2012 at 8:55 am
I just watched two interviews Rubio gave responding to the Pres’s State of the Union. He clearly favors Romney. He said, in both interviews, something like “look, debates are important but I remind people all the time that if a congressman says something careless it gets bad press but if a President says something careless people all over the world get hurt”. Pretty clearly a warning against Newt. I’m content, and I’m sure Team Romney is content, with what Rubio’s done to subtly shift the race towards Romney. Without Rubio’s batting down of the Newt anti-immigrant ad the immigration exchange in the debate could have gone very differently.
January 28th, 2012 at 9:03 am
By the by, this is why I love Rubio. He knew he couldn’t endorse Romney without losing his cache with conservatives- which will come in more handy for Romney in a general election anyway, whether Rubio ends up on the ticket or not- so he just very subtly gave Romney a boost. This has been the hallmark of Rubio’s political career- an ability to carefully balance the interests of the competing sections of the party, and have an impact, without giving any group a reason to dislike him. IThis is THE political talent and would be a real help on a ticket.
January 28th, 2012 at 9:20 am
37# Agreed, as opposed to the political bomb throwers, radio talk show hosts, flavors of the month, and the self serving.