Sun Sets on the Sunshine State: The Romney Victory

Truth About Bills ^ | 02/01/2013 | Mark Mayberry

[Mark Mayberry]

Mitt Romney won Florida tonight by a comfortable margin of fourteen percent.  He addressed his faithful this evening by congratulating his counterparts and directly addressing the Obama Administration.  Romney seems to be moving away from assaulting his fellow Republican candidates and more toward setting his sights on President Obama.  At one point in the speech Romney addressed President Obama and used a Thomas Payne adage suggesting that he promised to lead, chose to follow and now it is time for him to get out of the way.

Romney appears to be looking past the final forty-six states but the question is, how wise is that decision?  Romney is facing two men who have proved that they can win states and do it convincingly.

Rick Santorum spoke tonight after the results were mostly in from the next battleground state, Nevada, where he has already set up camp.  He is still very optimistic citing polls that have him in the lead in places like Ohio and Missouri.  One thing is clear though.  If Rick Santorum wants to win delegates he has got to begin to chip away at Romney.  Santorum has clearly weakened Newt Gingrich and it is worth noting that Gingrich lost Florida by about the same percentage as Rick Santorum received in the state.

Santorum has run a clean race and their hope appears to be that conservatives are going to grow tired of the two front-runners and eventually look for a much more serious candidate in Rick Santorum.  Gingrich clearly can see that Santorum is taking away from his vote tallies by again using his closing speech in Florida to try and pressure Santorum out of the race.  The former Speaker said, “It is now clear that this will be a two person race.”

These are very pompous words for a man who is finishing in second place losing by the same margin as Santorum lost to him.  Gingrich needs to soften his approach to Santorum if he wants to garner those votes in the event that Santorum does leave the race.

Gingrich did come out of South Carolina looking very strong however one thing that people did not take into account was the early voting done in Florida.  Romney overwhelmingly won out the early voting and this ultimately lead to his overall victory in Florida.

Ron Paul who is apparently burning out very quickly lost his second primary in a row now finishing in fourth place with seven percent of the vote.  This is a signal that just as suspected Paul lacks the support to make a serious bid for the presidency.  His overall message obviously just does not resonate with most conservatives.  Ron Paul will likely stay in the race until the end but it is doubtful that he will cause much more of a stir barring some kind of unforeseen disaster.  At this point it looks like the glory days of the Ron Paul campaign were in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The real wild card seems to be Santorum.  Although the top two candidates have ruled him out as not being a serious contender, no one really knows how well he will do in the next forty-six states.  Santorum in all likelihood has just as good of a chance at stealing the show as anyone else.  In a FOX NEWS interview this evening he remarked that the campaign changes momentum day to day and he is right.

This business that somehow Romney has guaranteed a victory for himself now that he has won Florida is quite frankly absurd.  Romney leaves Florida with fifty delegates and in my opinion no more support than when he entered.  The fifty delegates will help but lets not forget that it take over fourteen –hundred to win.  Romney should not be popping any corks just yet.

In the coming days the candidates will turn their gaze toward the bright lights of Vegas and only time will tell if fortunes will change for any of the candidates and if maybe an unlikely front-runner will emerge.

For More on the GOP primaries and other news please visit Truth About Bills and The College Conservative.  You can also follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

[hoosiermama]

Click to Donate to Newt Gingrich