Funded Florida Primary Just as Michael Moore predicted, the one who
looks like the fifth face on Mount Rushmore is ahead in this Repugnant
beauty contest. Swingrich has ignored the results. -T
The Nation: How Romney Beat Gingrich In Florida
by Ben Adler
Romney defeated Newt Gingrich and other challengers to win Florida's
primary. The contest now moves on to other states in February.
Ben Adler is a blogger for The Nation.
Florida is a big state in terms of both geography and population.
Consequently — and also because it does not receive the wildly
disproportionate attention that Iowa and New Hampshire do — it cannot
be won through old-fashioned grassroots politicking alone. The Florida
campaign is fought primarily on the airwaves, so it takes money to
compete there. That's why candidates who excel more in exciting an
ideological base on a limited budget, such as Ron Paul and Rick
Santorum, skipped Florida to focus on upcoming caucus states, starting
with Nevada.
Paul had his weakest showing thus far in Florida, with only 7 percent.
Santorum told CNN on Tuesday night that he stopped campaigning in
Florida because he lacked the funds to compete there. It's too bad for
him. After a strong debate performance on Thursday this might have
been his moment. Despite barely campaigning in Florida he came in
third place with 13 percent.
But Tuesday night belonged to Mitt Romney, who vastly outspent his
opponents. According to USA Today, "Restore our Future, an outside
group supporting Romney, accounted for about $8.8 million in the ad
wars, and the candidate and the 'super PAC' combined outspent Gingrich
and Winning The Future, the organization backing him, by about $15.5
million to $3.3 million." These ads were overwhelmingly negative.
Romney did not so much win as he defeated Gingrich.
Here are the two main reasons Romney won Florida by a commanding 47
percent to Gingrich's 32 percent.
Demographics are destiny. As exit polls show, Romney's relative
strengths and weaknesses among different segments of the Republican
electorate remain fairly stable from state to state, but the
composition of the electorate changes. Florida's Republican electorate
was more demographically favorable to him than than of Iowa or South
Carolina. First of all, it's old, which helps Romney and Gingrich and
hurts Santorum and Paul. In every state thus far we've seen Paul's
support, and to a lesser extent Santorum's, skew younger while
Gingrich's and Rommey's lean older. Among voters 65 and older, who
compose 36 percent of the Florida Republican electorate, Romney won 51
percent and Gingrich got 34 percent. Only six percent of the
electorate was under 30, and no exit poll breakdown for how they voted
is available. But among 30-39 year-olds Romney got 37 percent to
Gingrich's 25, while Paul got 18 percent and Santorum won 17 percent.
The other big demographic advantage for Romney was the relative
moderation of Florida's Republican voters compared to South Carolina.
He's still having trouble sealing the deal with the most conservative
Republicans, but luckily for him they were not as big a factor. Among
the one-third of voters who identified themselves as "very
conservative," Gingrich won with 41 percent to Romney's 30 and
Santorum's 22. But Romney trounced Gingrich and Santorum among voters
who identified as "somewhat conservative" and voters who described
themselves as moderate or liberal, winning majorities in both
categories. This is why Romney is clearly the GOP's strongest
potential candidate in swing states such as Florida. That, in turn, is
why the Republican establishment came out with overwhelming force in
Romney's favor, or at least against Gingrich.
Here's another way — one that is being largely misrepresented in the
media — of looking at the conservative versus moderate divide.
Commentators are pointing to the fact that Romney edged out Gingrich
41-37 among the 65 percent of voters who said they support the Tea
Party as evidence that Romney is finally winning over the Tea Party
movement. But simply saying "yes" to the question of whether you
support the Tea Party is not the same as really being a member of the
Tea Party. If you asked Democrats whether they support the
environmental movement you might find two-thirds say yes, but the vast
majority of those people would not be representative of dedicated
environmental activists.
Among the 35 percent of voters who said they "strongly support" the
Tea Party movement, Gingrich beat Romney 45-35. But Romney won 50-28
among the 30 percent who said they "somewhat support" the Tea Party,
and he won landslides among those who said they hold neutral or
negative views of the Tea Party. (Romney beat Gingrich 57 to 22 and 62
to 17 among those two groups, respectively.)
So among Florida Republicans "Tea Party support" is just another term
for conservatism. The bad news for Romney: the voters who are very
conservative and strongly support the Tea Party might be the voters
most likely to show up in lower-profile primaries and caucuses, where
turnout is lower and the most partisan, ideological and activist
voters tend to be over-represented. The good news? Romney remains
stronger with prospective swing voters, which might bode well for
relatively moderate upcoming states like Michigan and Ohio, and in the
general election.
You can even view this same phenomenon through the prism of geography.
In Florida, as you go north Romney's numbers go south. He dominated
Gingrich in South Florida, 56 to 28, but he had smaller margins of
victory in the Tampa and Orlando areas. In North Florida and the
Panhandle, Gingrich beat Romney, 39 to 38. Of course, in Florida the
north is the South. The South is Republicans' strongest region, and it
remains relatively favorable to Gingrich and unfavorable to Romney.
That being said, Romney performed better in the Panhandle than he did
in South Carolina. And central and Southern Florida look a lot more
like some of the upcoming states — and crucial swing states this Fall
— such as Nevada and Colorado.
Another important demographic factor for Romney was religion. Only 40
percent of the electorate in Florida were white evangelical
Christians. Gingrich edged Romney among those voters 38 to 36. Romney
beat Gingrich 2 to 1 among all other voters. Romney is lucky that
evangelicals are not a majority of Florida Republicans, as they were
in the Iowa caucus and South Carolina primary.
Effective attacks. Gingrich and Romney may make a lot of petty
accusations about whose personal gains from lobbying or investing were
more ill-gotten, but Romney also went after Gingrich on substance.
He had plenty to work with. One devastating Romney ad consisted
entirely of a clip from the NBC Nightly News in 1997, when Tom Brokaw
opened with a report on then-Speaker Gingrich being found guilty by
his colleagues of ethical improprieties. The text was so strong it's
worth repeating in full:
Good evening. Newt Gingrich, who came to power, after all, preaching a
higher standard in American politics, a man who brought down another
speaker on ethics accusations, tonight he has on his own record the
judgment of his peers, Democrat and Republican alike. By an
overwhelming vote, they found him guilty of ethics violations; they
charged him a very large financial penalty, and they raised – several
of them – raised serious questions about his future effectiveness.
Continued at The Nation
More:
http://www.npr.org/2012/02/01/146191914/the-nation-how-romney-beat-gingrich-in-florida
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
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