The Other McCain

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Steak & Eggs Morning News Round-Up: Florida GOP Voter ‘Horrified’ by Newt; Romney Opens Double-Digit Poll Lead

Posted on | January 29, 2012 | 18 Comments

NAPLES, Fla.
This morning I drove to Waffle House for breakfast — 5-ounce New York strip steak, two eggs over medium, hashbrowns, wheat toast, large orange juice and coffee, $11.71 — and the waitress had a tattoo on her neck.

On the way back to the posh condo (thanks, Dan Collins!) I stopped to pick up the local paper and saw the front-page story in the Naples Daily News by Ben Wolford:

Enduring the midday sun, Lynn Ellwood smiled and said “good morning” to dozens of early voters Thursday at the library on Orange Blossom Drive in North Naples. The poster in her lap said “Romney.”
“This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this,” said Ellwood, 72, a retired speech pathologist and businesswoman from Baltimore. Before last week, she had never so much as passed out a handbill.
“I was so horrified when (Newt Gingrich) won South Carolina that I decided I’ve got to do something,” Ellwood said. “This seems like the most important election of my lifetime.” . . .

The story never tells us why Lynn Ellwood hates Newt so much, but at the end, Wolford includes this:

Even Ellwood — who dislikes Gingrich enough to spend a few hours on a folding chair outside the library holding a poster that she concedes may not actually be effective — could vote for Gingrich if he was the nominee.
“If I didn’t vote for him, I’d be effectively voting for Obama,” she said. “I would have to think about it. And I would have to hold my nose.”

And in between, Wolford finds a Santorum voters:

For Barbara A. Crowe, 80, of Naples, abortion is a deal-breaker, and she questions the sincerity of Gingrich and Romney when they say they are anti-abortion.
“Once you see and hear Rick Santorum, he’s absolutely true blue,” said Crowe, who voted early for the former Pennsylvania senator. “He’s a family man. He’s the core of the American values. He represents that for me.”

So that’s the big news here in Naples, but the Daily News also has an Associated Press story with this information:

Figures made available to The Associated Press showed Romney was spending $2.8 million to air television commercials in the final week of the Florida campaign. In addition, a group supporting him, Restore Our Future, was spending $4 million more, for a combined total of $6.8 million.
By contrast, Gingrich was spending about $700,000, and Winning Our Future, a group backing him, an additional $1.5 million. That was about one-third the amount for the pro-Romney tandem.

From a pro-Santorum perspective, this is good news: The two frontrunners unloading about $9 million combined on Florida, a winner-take-all state that only one will win, which leaves them with that much less money for the fight ahead while Santorum’s low-budget campaign — which has spent next to nothing in the Sunshine State — concentrates its resources elsewhere.

Two new polls show Romney pulling away toward a double-digit victory in Florida. Byron York reports on the latest Rasmussen poll that shows Romney beating Gingrich by 16 points, 44-28, while an NBC/Marist poll has Romney up by 15 points, 42-27.

Remember that Florida is the first closed primary — Republicans only — of the 2012 campaign, and the apparently high level of resistance to Newt may indicate that some conservatives have underestimated the number of Lynn Ellwoods in the GOP electorate.

It’s time for me to get to downtown Naples for the big Mitt Romney rally, but first I wanted to share this video tour of the posh condo which my friend Dan Collins has made available to me as Florida headquarters for the National Affairs Desk this weekend:

Dan’s father wants to sell this condo and, as much as I’d like to make it the permanent headquarters of my Worldwide New Media Empire, (a) it’s probably a wee bit out of my price range, and (b) this is an “adults only” community and I’ve got six kids, and my wife probably doesn’t want to get rid of them just yet.

So if you know someone who’s in the market for a lovely South Florida condo, tell them to contact Dan Collins.


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Category: Election, Fear and Loathing in the Sunshine State, Florida, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Polls, Rick Santorum

Comments

  • http://thatmrgguy.wordpress.com/ Mike G.

    Veifeil costa es?  Real nice place. But you know, the least expensive part of buying a condo in a place like that is the actual purchase price. What will kill you is the high property taxes and the annual membership dues to use the facilities.

  • Monty

    Santorum needs to drop out

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    Stacy, you keep posting these ocean-front views and condo pics and your wife may want to get rid of YOU.  You get home, just drop your bags and start mowing the lawn is all I’m saying…

  • http://twitter.com/Mutnodjmet Leslie Eastman
  • http://twitter.com/vermontaigne Dan Collins

    Thanks for pimping out the place, Stacy. Enjoy!

  • DaveO

    What we have here are Democrats vs. Republicans – in one party. As Progressives drove Dems from their own party, they ended up as the left wing of the GOP. How many times did Lynn Ellwood vote democrat before this election cycle?

  • http://zillablog.marezilla.com Zilla of the Resistance

    No he doesn’t. Florida is only the 4th state to have primary or caucus voting, last time I checked, there were 50  states. People who think they know better than everyone else need to STFU because they only show that they are jackasses. 

  • http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/ Evi L. Bloggerlady

    All Mitt Romney wants is an appropriate offering from Allen West.  And an appropriate answer is due back to them…

  • Anonymous

     The basic problem for supporters of Romney is his lack of political moxie. Without great gobs of money and the ability to buy organization and endorsements, Romney is just some guy with ambitions beyond his reach. Without money and what it could do for him he’d never have been a governor, never have been able to win a single delegate in 2008, might have dropped out earlier than Pawlenty in this go-around. He’s no campaigner on his own, and it’s laughable to think what would have happened in Iowa had his funding been no greater than that of Rick Santorum.

    Without money Romney’s highest practical ambition would have been mayor of a modest-sized city.

    And the saddest part for Bob Dole and the rest of the neo-leftists… against Obama and the billion-buck-campaign, Romney’s money won’t nearly be sufficient.

  • A Stephens

    No, he does not!  We’re 4 freaking states in, for crying out loud.  If you or your candidate don’t have any stomach for the process, go sit at the kiddie table and leave the heavy lifting to the adults.

  • A Stephens

    No, he does not!  We’re 4 freaking states in, for crying out loud.  If you or your candidate don’t have any stomach for the process, go sit at the kiddie table and leave the heavy lifting to the adults.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    The Amendments passed to reform redistricting were originally proposed by Marco Rubio, that well-known RINO, before West was ever elected.  With two new districts and gerrymandering being ended, and West’s district surrounded by South Florida Democratic areas, there is just no way he wasn’t going to get more Democrats in his district, PERIOD.

    Don’t believe me?  Look at his district now, and show me a plan that doesn’t do that but conforms to both the Florida law and the DOJ-VRA guidelines.

    http://tinyurl.com/btohfk

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Let me guess – by the stupidity, I’d say . .  . Gingrich backer.

    Did you read the lady say she would vote ABO, for Newt if necessary?  Or were there too many big words to get through?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bart-Morgay/100001554351938 Bart Morgay

    The Romney fix is in. Karl Rove is smiling.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    There are Waffle House waitresses without tattoos, but only because most states make you be 18 to get one.

  • Anonymous

    If anything, he’s the only one that offers a real choice.

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