Posts Tagged ‘Florida’

Mitt Romney is on track to wrap up the GOP nomination with a win on Tuesday in Florida.  He had a strong performance in Thursday’s debate and polls out today show him up anywhere between eight and 11 points over Newt Gingrich.

This turnaround demonstrates that he can get the job down, something that will serve him well going into a General Election against President Obama.

As Gingrich enjoyed his surge and win in South Carolina, political observers speculated that he would eventually implode. What worried most GOP operatives was that the implosion would come after he secured the Republican nomination.  As if on cue, he promptly began to sink, and Romney again surged just in time for the Florida primary.

While it has been messy, the process has made Romney a better candidate and better prepared to face the onslaught that awaits him from the Democrats.

After Romney wins Florida, it will be nearly impossible for Santorum or Gingrich to make the case to stay in the race.  Ron Paul will stay in, because he continues to raise enough money to plod along, and he may even do pretty well in some of the upcoming caucuses (Maine, Nevada, Colorado and Minnesota) but Romney will more than likely win the Arizona and Michigan primaries, and he will be an unstoppable force going into Super Tuesday.

It’s been a wild ride – and it’s not quite over, but there are likely very few surprises that can happen now.

Heading into the Florida Presidential Primary, the soap opera that is the GOP nominating process is becoming a full-on hurricane.

Newt Gingrich’s polling line looks like a heart monitor, Ron Paul is wandering in the sugar cane fields looking for relevance, Rick Santorum can’t think of a place he will actually win and Mitt Romney is starting to get that terrified look in his eye as he realizes this isn’t his just for the taking.

That is one of the more interesting aspects of the last week.  We actually get to see Romney express some emotion, because nothing makes you more emotional than fear.

And guess what?  Newt Gingrich getting the nomination scares the crap out of me.

That’s kind of the story for the last day or two: conservatives realizing “Oh my gosh, Newt might win this!”  And that isn’t a happy exclamation point.

Thursday’s debate didn’t really change the make up of the race, so let’s get Tuesday over with and move on.