Florida has huge role as presidential campaign enters home stretch

DELRAY BEACH?

? With the finish line finally in sight, President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney have raced off on a punishing, two-week sprint through Florida and other battleground states, with the White House the prize that awaits the winner.

The starter's pistol for the dash to Election Day went off the minute the moderator of the Lynn University Bachelor's, master's & online degrees presidential debate in Boca Raton, Bob Schieffer of CBS News, ended the last big event of the 2012 campaign by urging all Americans to vote. With that, the candidates were off.

Despite Republican spin ? vociferously disputed by Democrats ? that Sunshine State momentum favors Romney, Florida remains one of the most fiercely contested states in the country. That's why Obama began the final two weeks of the campaign on Tuesday with a rally at the Delray Beach Tennis Center. He's due in Tampa on Thursday.

Speaking to 11,000 people here the morning after the debate, Obama said the nation has made "real progress" on the economy, with jobs added during his administration, home values rising, and wars ended or winding down.

And he repeated the charge that his opponent is afflicted with "Romnesia," which causes him to forget previous positions. "We had a severe outbreak last night. It was at least Stage 3 Romnesia," Obama said. "And I just want to go over with you some of the symptoms, Delray, because I want to make sure nobody in the surrounding area catches it."

Romney, who had spent the days immediately leading up to the debate in Florida, jetted off to Nevada, another swing state, on Tuesday. He's coming back to Florida, possibly as early as Friday.

"He is very well-positioned to win Florida. Florida voters care about the economy. Florida voters care about the future," said Romney campaign senior adviser Kevin Madden. "On those two issues, Governor Romney has presented a much better plan about what he would do to fix the economy, what he would do for jobs, and President Obama hasn't."

To counter assertions he has no real second-term agenda, Obama at the rally unveiled a 20-page economic plan that will be mailed to millions of voters in battleground states, including Florida, and delivered to the doors of millions more.

The latest polls show a tight race for Florida's 29 electoral votes ? more than 10 percent of the 270 needed to win the presidency. The RealClearPolitics average of Florida surveys on Tuesday ? too early to reflect any impact from the Boca Raton debate ? had 48.4 percent for Romney and 46.6 percent for Obama, a spread of just 1.8 percentage points in Romney's favor.

Ten days earlier, Romney was up by 3.2 points.

"Florida's truly a toss up, 50-50," said former U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, one of Obama's earliest supporters for the 2008 presidential nomination. Now president of the Washington-based S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, Wexler had a prime spot for the Lynn debate, in the district he used to represent, next to First Lady Michelle Obama.

"I think Romney in Florida seemed to peak about five days ago, and now ever so slowly it's trending Obama's way," Wexler said.

A trend in Romney's direction had prompted Nate Silver of the widely respected fivethirtyeight blog, named for the total number of electoral votes, to declare Romney "a definitive favorite" in Florida ? so much so that he questioned whether Obama should even bother wooing voters here anymore.

But the Democrats aren't conceding Florida. U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said Republicans suggesting they're winning Florida is empty spin. "Like I've said, we've got a ground game that we've executed. Republicans have a lot of talk and bluster," Wasserman Schultz said.

In a telephone conference call with reporters on Tuesday, Obama senior strategist David Axelrod said that in Florida, "We are not pulling back at all." Campaign manager Jim Messina rejected as unfounded "gossip" the notion that Obama is abandoning any of the battleground states.

Republicans aren't claiming it's a done deal, even though U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said "we're very excited about the momentum we're having."

Talk of a Romney advantage in Florida is dangerous for the Republicans, because it can lead to complacency. It also hurts Obama because it could discourage his voters from turning out.

And even if the Obama team concluded it wasn't going to do well in Florida, it wouldn't make that fact public because that would free up the Republicans to divert time and money from Florida to other states.

As the 2012 campaign enters its final phase, Florida Democrats believe they have superior organization, thanks to an investment of money and people that began a year before Romney clinched his party's nomination and began building a ground game in the state. Now up to 104 offices, Democrats say they'll be able to mobilize their supporters to get to the polls.

Though the Republicans started later and have only 47 campaign offices statewide, plus others operated by county parties, they say they've done a massive amount of phone banking to turn out Floridians for Romney. On Tuesday, they reported their 10 millionth voter contact ? thanks to a phone call by volunteer Kim Jaco from the Boca Raton office.

"It's an important state so we're going to make sure that we give it as much attention as we need to make sure it's in the win column on Election Day," Madden said. "That's going to be really full tilt from here until Election Day."

That means the candidates and their surrogates will be flooding Florida until the polls close at 7 p.m. on Nov. 6.

White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew, who's been reaching out to Jewish voters, remained in South Florida after Obama wrapped up the Delray Beach appearance and went to Dayton, Ohio. U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the unsuccessful 2008 Republican presidential nominee, is planning a six-city bus tour of the state Wednesday and Thursday to talk up Romney.

Ann Romney, wife of the Republican nominee, will be making three stops in the state on her own Wednesday, in Tampa, Lakeland and Winter Park. Craig Romney, one of their sons, will also stump for his father in Orlando.

"We're still going to be a battleground state," said U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami. "It's going to come down to the wire."

aman@tribune.com, 954-356-4550

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/browardpolitics/~3/WturP0LItcE/fl-lynn-university-post-debate-20121023,0,1580380.story

adrienne rich cesar chavez day raspberry ketone ron burgundy millennial media nit championship transcendentalism