Florida Boosts Romney
What a difference a few days make! On the morning following the Jan. 21 South Carolina (SC) GOP primary, radio commentator Bill Press had said, “It would be very difficult to stop Gingrich’s progress from this point on.” Even Tom Hartmann had said “Gingrich has the momentum now.” And this morning Bill Press said, “There is no doubt that the former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is going to be the GOP nominee.” He had based his prediction on the result of Florida’s Republican primary, where Romney aced Gingrich by nearly 15% vote. I am not sure why the big guns failed to realize that we did not need to read much in South Carolina’s result, since Romney’s nomination was never in doubt in my mind, and here are my reasons.
This year’s GOP primary is little more than a media circus. We have seen all the major candidates becoming number one at some stage of their campaign—what does that tell us? Tom Hartmann had analyzed this very well, several times in his nationwide radio programs. His hypothesis is: the big businesses that control the media benefit when there is a close race. Candidates spend more money buying TV ad, making the companies’ bottom line look better, and that is all they are interested in. For the media, it is only an opportunity to increase their revenue share, and that is more important to them than upholding any ideologue.
How did Romney win in Florida? He spent about $15M on TV ad, blowing Gingrich’s puny efforts by seven to one. The advertising in Florida was sponsored both by the Romney campaign and a super PAC working on Romney’s behalf. They flooded the airwaves with negative ads downloading all baggage Gingrich had accumulated as speaker, and as a consultant to the troubled mortgage giant Freddie Mac after leaving office. Newt tasted his own medicine, his earlier support to remove limit of campaign donation by big businesses, came to bite him!
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