Mitt Romney is going to win the Republican nomination after his winner-take-all trouncing of the bombastic but unprincipled flamethrower Newt Gingrich in the Florida primaries, so believes his political colleagues.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., pretty much summarized what many pundits believe is the importance of a Florida victory: “Whomever wins Florida is going to win the nomination, and rightfully so,” Rubio said. “[Florida] is a mini-America. Every issue that we want our nominee to be conversing on and be convincing on is an issue that they had to confront right here in Florida.”
Gingrich saw his campaign resurrected after he beat Romney resoundingly in ultra-conservative South Carolina. But now the Georgia GOP hopeful may have to construct a graceful exit strategy. Despite Gingrich’s flurry of negative attacks on Romney in the last few days, calling him a liar and a liberal, the Georgia statesman has been unable to strike a chord with Florida voters.
It seems that the GOP and Republican electorate are concluding that Romney stands the best chance to unseat incumbent President Obama. And with Romney joining Obama in using Squares, the mobile credit card reader, in order to maximize the amount of money that pours into their coffers, the absolutely brutal fundraising wars between them should be as entertaining as their intellectual TV matchups in the coming months.
–terry shropshire
