As Chris Matthews opined he Dresden Bombed his opponent. 63% of the television ads in Florida were Romney anti-Newt attack ads. Matthews also expressed the opinion--hope?--that Newt would somehow exact revenge in the process because he knows what was done to him and how.
Romney surpassed his 2008 totals in the state and at this time looks like he will outdraw McCain's vote tally from that year. Over 40% of the voters told exit polls they were dissatisfied with their choices.
Early in the afternoon Ron Paul, who did miserably, and Rick Santorum were out of state, already working Nevada where there is a caucus soon.
Author Charles Pierce summed up Romney as "a man with the charisma of grass seed and the political principles of a moray eel."
Greg Sargent earlier in the day wrote a fascinating piece in the Washington Post about one R. Bradford Malt, who manages Romney's wealth. Based on a Boston Globe report, Malt sold in 2007 before Mitt's run for the Republican nomination stocks in tobacco, casinos and the firms Mitt invested in with holdings in Iran. In 2011, before Romney pushed for tougher trade sanctions against China, he dumped a number of his holdings in China. He recently shed a money market fund that had invested in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. His account of closing the $3 million UBS Swiss Bank account actually made some sense--he was hedging against the dollar and wanted to put Romney in foreign currency so that Swiss france investments wouldn't depreciate if the dollar fell.
Coincidentally this happened about the same time that the DOJ was negotiating with UBS to reveal Americans with Swiss bank accounts.
But tonight belongs to Willard,the first businessman since Herbert Hoover who has a chance at the presidency. Or as others have noted--George Will and Frank Rich--this century's answer to Tom Dewey, "America's best administrator".
Meanwhile, Willard's behavior in Florida has cost him dearly among independents, where his negatives have taken off.
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