The Sydney Morning Herald
Florida voters go for Romney
By Simon Mann
THE hostility that marked Florida's Republican primary is set to continue with Newt Gingrich pointedly declining to congratulate winner Mitt Romney.
Instead, the former House Speaker rallied supporters with a battle cry that characterised the contests ahead as ''people power'' versus Mr Romney's ''money power''.
Set back by Mr Romney's commanding 14.5 percentage point win in the biggest state to vote so far, Mr Gingrich pledged to fight on through all 46 remaining contests.
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''We are going to contest every place, and we will win,'' he boldly predicted, describing his candidacy as the party's opportunity ''to nominate a conservative who knows what he is doing, who has done it before''.
But Mr Romney's big win exposed key stumbling blocks to Mr Gingrich's chances of forging a winning constituency: according to exit polls, women and those voters concerned mostly about the state of the US economy snubbed Mr Gingrich. Married women, in particular, backed Mr Romney over the thrice-married Mr Gingrich 51 per cent to 29 per cent.
The former Massachusetts governor's win gave him all of Florida's 50 delegates to the party's national convention in August and a springboard into February's remaining contests, starting with Nevada's caucuses on Saturday.
He captured 46.4 per cent of the vote in Florida to Mr Gingrich's 31.9 per cent. Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania, was a distant third with 13 per cent, followed by Texas congressman Ron Paul (7 per cent).
Mr Romney's win was built on a TV and radio advertising blitz in which more than 13,000 ads at a cost of $US17 million ($A16 million) portrayed Mr Gingrich as unethical and dishonest. Much of the attack was funded by political action committees allied to Mr Romney, causing bitter resentment in the Gingrich camp, which was outgunned by five-to-one.
Mr Gingrich had accused the Romney camp of ''carpet-bombing'' the state with ads that media analysts judged as negative in 92 per cent of cases. But Mr Romney explained the blitz as fighting fire with fire, after the Gingrich camp had attacked hard - and successfully - in last month's South Carolina primary.
Mr Romney, with his wife of 42 years, Ann, and four of his five adult sons sharing the stage with him, refrained from continuing the assault against Mr Gingrich, instead training his rhetoric on President Barack Obama, whom he hopes to challenge in November's election.
To wild cheers, he said his leadership would ''end the Obama era and start a new era of American prosperity''.
He attacked the White House incumbent on economic policy, and promised to maintain a military ''so powerful that no one would ever think of challenging it'', in contrast to what he described as Mr Obama's policy of ''appeasement and apology''.
He laid claim to being a successful businessman who ''saved'' the Salt Lake City winter Olympics from scandal and an administrator who had cut taxes 19 times in Massachusetts.
Florida voters overall, however, may not be quite so ready to dump Mr Obama, who won the state in 2008 with 50.9 per cent of the vote against John McCain's 48.4 per cent. An NBC opinion poll this week put him ahead of Mr Romney 49-41 and of Mr Gingrich 52-35, although the President's approval rating in the swing state matches his disapproval rating at 46 per cent.
Already, the Obama campaign team has opened 11 offices across Florida as it marshals the President's re-election forces.
Mr Romney cautioned Democrats against delighting in the spectacle of Republican challengers beating up on each other, saying a hard-fought, competitive primary race would not divide Republicans but prepare the eventual nominee for the main event.
Fewer than 2 million of Florida's 3.8 million registered Republicans voted in Tuesday's primary.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/florida-voters-go-for-romney-20120201-1qtct.html
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