So far, Barack Obama is winning the Sunshine State – helped by the Republican feud
IF AS expected Mitt Romney wins the Florida primary today, it will be because in the 10 days since he was defeated by Newt Gingrich in South Carolina, he has learned to be both nasty and nice.
Neither attribute comes naturally to the bland former governor of Massachusetts. But hours after Gingrich defeated him by 12 percentage points in South Carolina, Romney’s advisers hatched a plan: he had to focus less on tearing down President Barack Obama and zero in on Gingrich. Primed by a first rate coach, Romney went for Gingrich’s jugular in two debates last week. At the same time, with the help of Florida’s Cuban-American political establishment, he wooed the Hispanic community.
The Romney campaign has waged a $16 million annihilation campaign against Gingrich in Florida, described by its intended target as “carpet-bombing”. To rattle Gingrich, high-profile Romney supporters, led by Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz, infiltrated his rallies, offering on the spot rebuttals to Gingrich’s speeches.
Romney was challenged on NBC about what the New York Times called his “blistering and unrelenting series of attacks” against Gingrich. “There’s no question that politics ain’t bean bags,” Romney replied. “The speaker has been attacking me all over the state in ways that are really extraordinary; in some respects, painful to watch, because it’s so revealing of him.”
Gingrich yesterday told Bloomberg News that Romney is a “fundamentally dishonest” tool of Wall Street and that Romney contributors such as Goldman Sachs are trying to “rig the game”. Gingrich admitted he’s down to his last $600,000.
At one of Romney’s last rallies before the primary, hundreds of ageing Cubans, many of whom never learned English, a significant number of Jewish Floridians and small business owners crowded into a parking lot outside the Casa Marin restaurant in the lower middle class suburb of Hialeah, a neighbourhood of squat buildings with anti-burglar bars on the windows. It was an unusual setting for the millionaire candidate, and a test of his ability to effect a common touch.
Several people said they liked the fact that Romney had been the Republican governor of a liberal state. “You’ve got to know how to bring the opposition over. The Bush and Obama administrations were too divisive,” said Michael Daniels (30), a builder.
No one seemed to hold Romney’s massive fortune against him. “The fact he has hundreds of millions gives me heart,” said Giselle Schneider (56), a childcare worker. “All of us want to become millionaires. It proves the economy can work in this country.”
Some 6 per cent of Florida voters are Jewish, higher than the national average. Aaron Elias (34), a teacher of the Talmud who wears the kippa and tzitzit of an orthodox Jew, said policy towards Israel was only one of many issues important to him.
"I don't like the fact that both sides have become so radicalised," Elias said. "I like the fact that Romney took care of healthcare in Massachusetts." Many in the tightly packed crowd sweated in the monsoon heat. A woman waved a fan printed with the words: "Don't believe the liberal media. StopTheBias.org."
In his impeccably pressed shirt, Mitt Romney did not sweat. Hialeah must have seemed like a foreign country to him, yet Romney projected relaxed contentment. Miami’s political triumvirate helped him stir the crowd up.
A staggering 72 per cent of Miami-Dade county’s registered voters are Hispanic, and most of them are Cuban. The Diaz-Balart brothers, Lincoln and Mario, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American married to a Jewish-American, have held Miami’s two congressional seats for a generation. All three delivered rousing pro-Romney testimonies in Spanish.
The Diaz-Balart brothers are nephews of Fidel Castro’s first wife, Mirta.
“I’m 30, and Lincoln and Ileana have held power since I was in grade school,” said Michael Diaz, the operations manager for the Miami Marlins baseball team. “No one here has their own opinion. These old guys will fall for it.”
Romney’s promise to “stand with freedom fighters around the world” tapped into the patriotic nostalgia of the old Cubans. There were harsh words for at least five left-leaning South American leaders.
“Romney has taken the time to blend in with the Latin community,” Joseph Sosa, a local accountant, said. “[Venezuelan president Hugo] Chávez is trying to build a leftist federation across Latin America. He’s interfering in other countries,” Sosa explained. “Obama isn’t paying attention; Romney is.” But before Romney waded into Latin American politics, he finished off with Newt Gingrich, saying Gingrich “failed to connect” with Florida voters because he’d been in Washington for the past 15 years “working for people like Freddie Mac”.
A quarter of the more than 10 million mortgage foreclosures in the US have occurred in Florida, and Gingrich was paid at least $1.6 million “to say good things about Freddie Mac at the very time Freddie Mac is one of the institutions behind the great housing crisis that you’ve felt here in Florida,” Romney said.
Romney had reached the end of his stump speech, where he gushes about the hymn America the Beautiful. Three young people began shouting: “Why are you separating our families? Why don’t you care about immigrant families?” The youths were drowned out by booing. As Romney’s signature tune, I Was Born Free, blared from a loudspeaker, security men with earpieces and police in black uniforms converged on the protesters and jostled them away.
The three were students from Miami-Dade College and activists with the Get Equal organisation. “We’re here for a family agenda: for undocumented families to stay together, for the rights of same-sex parents,” said Caterina de Quesada (20). Her husband, Esteban Roncancio (20), will graduate in May with a perfect grade point average. “I’m undocumented,” he told me. “My mom brought me from Colombia when I was 14 ... Governor Romney wants to make our life so hard that we ‘self-deport’.”
Ann Romney was posing with supporters outside the campaign bus. Her husband had stepped into the restaurant to do some glad-handing.
These are early days but, so far, Barack Obama is winning the Sunshine State with a little help from the Republican feud. An NBC News/Marist poll of registered Florida voters at the weekend showed Obama defeating either Romney, at 49 to 41 per cent, or Gingrich, at 52 to 35 per cent.
Michael Diaz, the baseball manager, attended the Romney rally “to have a look” at the Republican frontrunner. Although he’s a registered Republican, Diaz voted for “Barack” in 2008 “because of the way he interacts with the young” and will probably do so again. But Diaz will vote for Romney today because he prefers the risk of a Romney presidency to the risk of Gingrich, whom he called “wild and out of control”.