Posted on 11/05/2011 10:52:15 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
DAYTONA BEACH -- At the Florida Tea Party Convention Saturday, you could find buttons calling for Marco Rubio to be on the presidential ticket, t-shirts declaring that Barack Obama has made communism cool again, and freeze-dried foods to last up to 25 years in case society collapses.
Scarce among the hundreds of conservative activists gathered in Daytona Beach? Any enthusiasm for Mitt Romney, the man widely expected to win the Republican presidential nomination.
“The party establishment has wanted Romney all along, and they’ve been pushing him on us,” lamented James Koll of Fort Dodge, Iowa, who said he would support a third-party or write-in a candidate before voting for Romney.
His brother, retiree Don Koll of The Villages in Central Florida, nodded in agreement.
“Some of these Republicans think they have our votes in the bag no matter what, but they don’t,” he said, complaining that no top-tier Republican candidates came to the tea party convention. “They’re turning their back on us, and they will pay a price.”
It’s one of the most critical questions facing Republicans determined to oust Obama: Is the president polarizing enough to energize the Republican base?
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
Romney is “stuck” with the supporters he has now. Those who support the remaining candidates...all conservative, but I don’t count Huntsman (lol)...will get behind the most conservative candidate that is left standing.
“The field will sort itself out.”
Yep...and I don’t see any one of the remaining candidates releasing his/her supporters to support Romney.
“When the conservative field is winnowed down, and consolidated behind one or two candidates...”
I was thinking about this today.
If the second tier of conservative candidates don’t start dropping out soon, and throwing their support to one of the top tier candidates, there will come a time during the primaries that it might be too late to prevent Romney from being the nominee.
The only reason I can surmised that they haven’t dropped out yet is all of the FREE debates that they’ve had.
I think the second tier believes that they can pick up support by staying in as long as the debates continue.
By not seeing this, sometimes I think the American people are stupid.
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