Present at the Creation: Adam Hasner, with Marco Rubio Against the Florida GOP Establishment

“A day in politics is like an eternity. A lot of recent events have altered the political landscape,” Adam Hasner told me by phone. Until last week was running for the U.S. Senate, but he is now running for the congressional seat vacated by Allen West.

Though Hasner hesitates to compare himself to West, the two have a lot in common. They are both principled, “minorities of minorities” who have to make  the case to groups not necessarily receptive to the conservative message. “When you are a black Republican or a Jewish Republican, you have to be even more firm in your beliefs and more principled,” Hasner explains.

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WINTER HAVEN, Fla. – Deric Feacher had a very worthwhile dream.

He wanted to establish a charter school in his hometown that specialized in helping disadvantaged and at-risk students earn their high school diplomas.

So he did what Florida law required. He took his proposal for the new charter school to the Polk County School Board’s Charter Review Committee, two different times. And twice he came away without permission to open his school, according to the Sunshine State News.

What was the committee’s hang-up? Were members afraid that Feacher would establish a bad school? Do they have a problem with the idea of creating a special school for children who are struggling in traditional schools?

It was nothing like that. The board members were just worried about losing money.

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Other than in South Carolina, 2012 GOP Primary turnout has been somewhat flat, or below that of 2008. Up +3 in Iowa and +6 in New Hampshire, it jumped to +35 in South Carolina but dropped to -14 in Florida. It’s possible that the last minute surge by Gingrich and his debate performances brought some added excitement to the race, turning out voters in South Carolina.

South Carolina, of course, was the strongest state for Newt Gingrich. In contrast, turnout among Republican identifiers was down for Mr. Romney’s two victories so far, as well as for his near-win in Iowa.

While it’s possible to argue that Romney’s negative advertising in Florida lowered turnout, along with the lack of a special real estate-related initiative – one was on the ballot in 2008 – a closer look at the numbers still points to a problem, especially for for Romney.

In both South Carolina and Florida, district-level turnout was more likely to trend up in districts that went to Newt, and flat, or down in ones that went for Romney. Once one looks at party identification, the trend gets even worse.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Matt Lewis to discuss the Florida primary, what the win means for Romney, and what he’ll have to do to secure the conservative base and the Tea Party contingent if he wants to be the nominee and defeat Obama in the fall.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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Romney Wins Big in Florida Primary, Regaining Momentum
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The case for ‘raging against the machine’
Matt Lewis at the Daily Caller

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In a deal with several moving parts, Conservative favorite Rep. Allen West will move over and run in Rep. Tom Rooney’s old district, as Rooney moves on to run in a newly created district. Additionally, Adam Hasner will drop his Senate bid, leaving a somewhat clearer path for Rep. Connie Mack to run for the Senate nomination.

U.S. Senate candidate Adam Hasner will likely leave the race and run for Allen West’s soon-to-be-vacated Congressional seat, a source tells us. West’s seat looks a lot like Hasner’s old legislative Delray Beach-based district.

Meanwhile, to avoid a bloody primary, leadership in the U.S. House asked Hasner to run for West’s seat. But first, West had to announce he’d leave his seat and run for Tom Rooney’s seat. And before that happened, Rooney had to announce he’d leave his district and run for a new district.

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Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has opened a double-digit lead in Florida as the perception grows among Republican primary voters that he is the strongest general election candidate against President Obama. The state’s GOP Primary is on Tuesday.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Florida Republican Primary Voters, conducted Saturday, shows Romney up by 16 points with 44% support. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is a distant second at 28%.

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Alex Marlow, Managing Editor, Breitbart.com:

New, aggressive Mitt Romney, who debuted in the goofy Brian Williams quasi-debate last week, was out in full force tonight and he was very, very good. Romney needs to be ready for a fight if he’s to go toe-to-toe with Obama, and the former Massachusetts Governor is finally showing some grit. Rick Santorum drew some blood on him in a heated exchange on healthcare, but Mitt has sworn he’d repeal Obamacare, and that should mitigate many voters’ concerns about his sub-par record on that issue.

Newt Gingrich is most effective when he’s bashing the media and taking the fight to the left (as opposed to strictly Obama), and he wasn’t able do much of either tonight. He called moderator Wolf Blitzer on one “nonsense question,” which was fun, and was able to shoe-horn in one Alinsky reference (which he didn’t have the chance to flesh-out), but those high-ish-lights weren’t enough to make up for an otherwise pedestrian performance.

Rick Santorum spent the first two thirds of the debate yelling at people—though his talking yelling points were generally quite good—and then got sweet and sensitive for the latter third. I like my President cool, calm, and collected, and Santorum needs work on that front.

Thanks to Ron Paul for the comic relief.

As usual, the real winner tonight was President Obama and his palace guards we call the mainstream media. While Wolf Blitzer wasn’t overtly partisan, he was able to keep the focus off of the failure currently occupying the White House or left-wing values and on moon colonies and which wife is best.

Mike Flynn, Editor, BigGovernment:

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Tonight, the 4 remaining GOP candidates meet for the final debate ahead of the Florida Primary on Tuesday. Expect fireworks between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Also, expect great analysis and reactions from the Breitbart world after the debate. Get the popcorn ready, sparks start flying at 8pm EST on CNN (!).

In polls taken after Newt Gingrich’s massive victory in South Carolina , the former speaker has seen his numbers skyrocket, both nationally and in the next primary state, Florida. In the Sunshine State, Gingrich holds a commanding lead over Romney in the Real Clear Politics polling average, 37.7% to 30.3% respectively. In just one week, Romney’s massive lead was destroyed, he fell 10.2% in six days.

Many analysts and pundits believe that Florida could be the firewall, where the final nominee will emerge victorious. Much like how California was to the Republican primary in 2008; where Romney lost to McCain 42.2% to 34.6%, causing Romney to drop out days later. If Romney can not win Florida this time around, does he still have a chance to be the nominee?

Currently, Romney is blessed by Gingrich’s own inefficiency more than anything else. Gingrich, through no fault of anyone besides his own campaigns, is not on the ballot in four states: Ohio, Virginia, Missouri, Illinois as well as the District of Columbia. In total, Gingrich can not compete for 255 of the parties delegates, which is 11% of all the delegates the candidates are of vying for as well as 22% of the total needed in order to become the nominee. So if Romney can beat Rick Santorum and Ron Paul, which he is likely to do, he would automatically be a quarter of the way there to obtain enough delegates and secure the nomination.

Romney also has a security blanket in three very important states: Michigan, Massachusetts, and Utah. These were the only non-caucus states Romney won in 2008 and is expected to win again fairly easily. Obviously, he was the former Governor of Massachusetts. Romney is a Mormon and according to his tax records has given heavily to their church. Mormons comprises nearly 60% of Utah‘s population and a greater percentage of the Utah Republican Party. Michigan was the state his father, George Romney, was Governor from 1963 to 1969.

Those three states contain 111 delegates, and most of which will be expected to go to Mitt Romney.

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Jacksonville, Florida (CNN) – One day before the final GOP presidential debate in Florida, it’s all tied up between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, according to a new survey.

A CNN/Time/ORC International Poll also indicates that while Gingrich surged following his 12-point victory in Saturday’s South Carolina primary, his momentum appears to be quickly cooling off.

According to the poll, 36% of people likely to vote in Tuesday’s Republican primary in the Sunshine State say they are backing Romney as the party’s nominee, with 34% supporting Gingrich. The former Massachusetts governor’s two point margin over the former House speaker is well within the survey’s sampling error.

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Florida’s Marion County school district drew national headlines last summer when it announced that it was switching to a four-day school week as a way to save money.

Other school officials took a more conventional route by laying off teachers and cutting student programs, all the while blaming Gov. Rick Scott for underfunding Florida’s public schools.

Now comes a report that finds 946 school employees in the Sunshine State earned at least $100,000 in 2010. That’s up 818 percent from 2005, according to the Foundation for Government Accountability.

The foundation also finds the percentage of non-school employees who earn at least six-figures has increased by only 7 percent during that same period.

“You don’t have to be great in math to figure out that something is wrong with these school salaries,” Tarren Bragdon, Foundation for Government Accountability CEO, told the Sunshine State News.

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As Newt Gingrich’s victory in the South Carolina primary upended all previously held notions surrounding the unfolding GOP primary race, a common and vocal narrative has become increasingly prevalent; namely, that while he excites the Republican base, Gingrich is an unelectable, personally unlikable candidate that will be trounced in the general election.

This notion is utterly false.

While it is certainly accurate that any of the four remaining candidates for the Republican nomination will provide a stark, and compelling, contrast to the failed policies of the Obama administration, it is Newt Gingrich who has of late tapped into a visceral chord of discontent that permeates throughout much of the nation.

And, contrary to the narrative promoting Gingrich’s un-electability, the anger and discontent felt throughout the nation is not relegated to the conservative base of the Republican party. Nearly every political demographic in the nation, left, right, and middle, is frustrated with the Obama administration’s failure to improve the economic health and overall condition of the country.

Right direction/wrong direction polls have consistently shown that more than three-quarters of the country feel as though the nation is on the wrong track. In a recent poll released by Rasmussen Reports, only 24% of American feel the country is headed in the right direction.

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Newt Gingrich seems to be making good use of a McCain oppo research file on Romney that hit the web last week. This from page 82:

People chuckled when presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a Mormon raised in Michigan and elected in Massachusetts, bungled the names of Cuban-American politicians during a recent speech in Miami. But when he mistakenly associated Fidel Castros trademark speech-ending slogan  Patria o muerte, venceremos!  with a free Cuba, listeners didnt laugh. They winced. Castro has closed his speeches with the phrase  in English, Fatherland or death, we shall overcome  for decades.

Florida’s Cuban community was reported to be livid with Romney at the time for his bungling Spanish, along with the key quote. The former Speaker’s campaign has turned it into radio spots and is hitting Romney on that and his stance on illegal immigration, as well.

Mitt Romney’s 2007 gaffe, where he quoted Fidel Castro and mis-attributed the line to Hugo Chavez, was the subject of mockery in the former Massachusetts governor’s hometown tabloid and is now the grist of fellow Republican Newt Gingrich’s latest radio ad that’s about to play on Spanish-language radio in South Florida. The ad doesn’t stop with Castro. It bashes Romney’s hardline immigration stance as well.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech discuss Newt Gingrich’s win in South Carolina, what his victory means for Florida’s upcoming primary, and whether or not the GOP could have a brokered convention.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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Some thoughts on the South Carolina results

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Less than two weeks ago, Mitt Romney had a 22-point lead in Florida, but that’s ancient history in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Following his big win in South Carolina on Saturday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich now is on top in Florida by nine.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Florida Republican Primary Voters, taken Sunday evening, finds Gingrich earning 41% of the vote with Romney in second at 32%. Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum runs third with 11%, while Texas Congressman Ron Paul attracts support from eight percent (8%). Nine percent (9%) remain undecided.(To see survey question wording, click here).

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WASHINGTON (AP) – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Sunday that he will release his 2010 tax returns and 2011 estimates on Tuesday, acknowledging it was a mistake for his campaign not to have done so earlier.

Stung by a loss to Newt Gingrich in Saturday’s South Carolina primary, the former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist said it was “not a good week for me” and he cited all the time he had spent talking about his tax returns as his rivals pressed him to make them public.

After months of resistance, Romney had said last week that he would release tax information for 2011, but not until April, close to the tax filing deadline. That also was seen as a time, before the South Carolina race rattled his front-runner status, when the GOP nomination might have been decided.

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – Newt Gingrich stormed to an upset win in the South Carolina primary Saturday night, dealing a sharp setback to Mitt Romney and scrambling the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

“Thank you, South Carolina!” Gingrich swiftly tweeted to his supporters. He appealed for a flood or donations for the next-up Jan. 31 primary. “Help me deliver the knockout punch in Florida. Join our Moneybomb and donate now,” he tweeted.

Already, Romney and a group that supports him were on the air in Florida with a significant ad campaign, more than $7 million combined to date. Romney had hoped that Florida would seal his nomination—if South Carolina didn’t first—but that strategy disappeared Saturday night.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas Rep. Ron Paul trailed badly in the South Carolina voting.

Exit polling showed Gingrich, the former House speaker, leading by a wide margin among the state’s heavy population of conservatives, tea party supporters and born-again Christians. (more…)

With New Hampshire secure, Romney became the first Republican non-incumbent presidential candidate to win both Iowa’s and New Hampshire’s primaries.

“Tonight we made history,” Romney told cheering supporters before pivoting to a stinging denunciation of President Barack Obama. “The middle class has been crushed,” in the past three years, he said, “our debt is too high and our opportunities too few” – remarks that made clear he intends to be viewed as the party’s nominee in waiting after only two contests (Associated Press).

New Hampshire was a no-contest, really, as Romney’s ground game and support was too much for any candidate to overcome. Ron Paul and John Huntsman each made hardy efforts in the state but were unable to effectively challenge Romney. Since Huntsman chose New Hampshire to make his stand and finished third, it’s hard to see the wisdom of staying in. If he was unable to convince New Hampshire, there’s no way he can convince the folks in South Carolina. (more…)

With 36 percent of Florida Republican likely primary voters, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has a double-digit lead three weeks before the nation’s first big-state presidential primary, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. But 54 percent of GOP primary voters say they still might change their mind.

Twelve points back in the Republican pack is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 24 percent, followed by former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum with 16 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University survey finds. Texas U.S. Rep. Ron Paul is at 10 percent with 5 percent for Texas Gov. Rick Perry and 2 percent for former ambassador Jon Huntsman. This first look at likely primary voters, a more select group, can’t be compared with earlier surveys of registered voters.

There is almost no gender gap in the primary selections.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Earlier this year Florida lawmakers voted to put a proposal on the statewide ballot which, if approved by voters, would clear the way for state money to be used for student tuition at religious schools.

The same lawmakers also expect the teachers’ union to launch a legal challenge to their proposal. So they passed another law, allowing the state attorney general to restructure and salvage ballot proposals that are tossed out by the courts before voters have a chance to consider them.

As it turns out, application of that law was necessary this week to sidestep a court ruling that temporarily threw the lawmakers’ proposal off the ballot, according to a story posted on Jacksonville.com.

As it stands now, Florida voters will once again get to decide whether public school students can use public money to attend religious schools.

That’s a huge victory for those who believe the people, rather than the courts, should dictate state policy. And it’s a huge defeat for the Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, which is fighting to maintain a guaranteed clientele of geographically-trapped students for its members. (more…)