Hi, Rita! It’s fascinating, I think.
Mallea was also part of Jeb Bush’s gubernatorial campaign staff. Needless to say, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush are both very well-liked in Florida. By contrast, Mittens snapped up the Florida campaign staffers from Charlie Crist’s failed senatorial campaign, and I am not kidding. LOL!!
Googling around, I also learned that Rubio had an autographed picture of Newt on his desk in the Florida legislature, which he took with him when he went to Washington. I read that Newt also somehow helped Rubio in getting his book publishing deal for his “100 Innovative Ideas for Florida’s Future.”
It says a lot that Jose Mallea was tapped as campaign manager for both Newt and Rubio. After Rubio’s victory, I’d bet Mallea was a hot commodity with all the presidential hopefuls trying to get him, and his ties to both Marco’s and Jeb’s campaign machines can only help.
Newt is definitely playing hard for the win in Florida. I think he’ll get it, too.
I saw the Florida AG, a woman, on Fox midday pushing Romney and saying how Florida was going to support him and erase last night’s Gingrich victory. She may have spoken about Newt’s “character” issues, but I can’t be certain about that.
I just get worried about Florida because the 2008 results make it look like a far more RINO state than South Carolina and Romney did far better there in 2008 than he did in South Carolina.
Last time McCain went slightly up from SC to FL, Huckabee went WAY down from 29% to 13%, and Romney went WAY up from 15% to 31%. The only thing that could explain Romney’s rise last time was Thompson dropping out, and it sounds like there was a movement at that time to push all conservative votes to Romney (how times have changed, LOL). But I’m not sure why Huckabee dropped so much in FL. Meanwhile, Romney did far better in SC this year than he did in 2008, from 15% to 28%, but Romney had that 31% in FL last time.
SOUTH CAROLINA 2008:
John McCain 147,733 33.15%
Mike Huckabee 132,990 29.84%
Fred Thompson 69,681 15.63%
Mitt Romney 68,177 15.3%
Ron Paul 16,155 3.62%
Rudy Giuliani 9,575 2.15%
FLORIDA 2008:
John McCain 701,761 36%
Mitt Romney 604,932 31.03%
Rudy Giuliani 286,089 14.68%
Mike Huckabee 262,681 13.47%
Ron Paul 62,887 3.23%
Fred Thompson* 22,668 1.16%
SOUTH CAROLINA 2012:
Newt Gingrich 243,153 40.4%
Mitt Romney 167,279 27.8%
Rick Santorum 102,055 17.0%
Ron Paul 77,993 13.0%
Herman Cain 6,324 1.1%