GOP voters saw Mitt Romney as the candidate most likely to defeat President Obama, Florida primary results show. But a disconnect persists between Romney and the party’s conservative base.

In the end, Florida Republicans want most to defeat President Obama, and they believe Mitt Romney is the man to do it.

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In exit polls taken from Tuesday’s primary, which Mr. Romney won by a resounding 14-point margin, 45 percent of voters reported that the ability to beat Mr. Obama is the candidate quality that matters most – well ahead of experience, strong moral character, and being a “true conservative.”

In addition, 53 percent of Florida Republicans said Romney would be the most likely to defeat Obama, far ahead of Newt Gingrich, who got 29 percent. Voters also reported the highest level of satisfaction with a Romney nomination, at 65 percent, compared with how they would feel about a different Republican nominee.

Romney also won among women voters (with 41 percent), white voters (45 percent), Hispanics (54 percent), and all age and income groups. He tied with former Speaker Gingrich among evangelicals, after losing them 2-to-1 in South Carolina.

Overall, Romney posted a solid win in Tuesday’s primary, beating Gingrich 46 percent to 32 percent. Rick Santorum came in third with 13 percent, and Ron Paul came in fourth with 7 percent. With the best-funded, best-organized campaign in the GOP field, Romney has reasserted his position as the favorite to win his party’s presidential nomination.

But embedded in the data are some warning signs for Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. Gingrich beat him among the 33 percent of Florida Republicans who call themselves “very conservative.” Among strong supporters of the tea party movement, more than one-third of the vote, Gingrich beat Romney by 12 percentage points.

Forty-one percent said Romney’s issue positions are “not conservative enough.” And 38 percent said they “would like to see someone else” in the Republican race.

GOP voters saw Mitt Romney as the candidate most likely to defeat President Obama, Florida primary results show. But a disconnect persists between Romney and the party’s conservative base.

In the end, Florida Republicans want most to defeat President Obama, and they believe Mitt Romney is the man to do it.

Skip to next paragraph

In exit polls taken from Tuesday’s primary, which Mr. Romney won by a resounding 14-point margin, 45 percent of voters reported that the ability to beat Mr. Obama is the candidate quality that matters most – well ahead of experience, strong moral character, and being a “true conservative.”

In addition, 53 percent of Florida Republicans said Romney would be the most likely to defeat Obama, far ahead of Newt Gingrich, who got 29 percent. Voters also reported the highest level of satisfaction with a Romney nomination, at 65 percent, compared with how they would feel about a different Republican nominee.

Romney also won among women voters (with 41 percent), white voters (45 percent), Hispanics (54 percent), and all age and income groups. He tied with former Speaker Gingrich among evangelicals, after losing them 2-to-1 in South Carolina.

Overall, Romney posted a solid win in Tuesday’s primary, beating Gingrich 46 percent to 32 percent. Rick Santorum came in third with 13 percent, and Ron Paul came in fourth with 7 percent. With the best-funded, best-organized campaign in the GOP field, Romney has reasserted his position as the favorite to win his party’s presidential nomination.

But embedded in the data are some warning signs for Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. Gingrich beat him among the 33 percent of Florida Republicans who call themselves “very conservative.” Among strong supporters of the tea party movement, more than one-third of the vote, Gingrich beat Romney by 12 percentage points.

Forty-one percent said Romney’s issue positions are “not conservative enough.” And 38 percent said they “would like to see someone else” in the Republican race.

TAMPA (Reuters) – Mitt Romney cruised to a blowout victory in Florida’s Republican presidential primary on Tuesday that put him back in front in the fight for his party’s nomination to face President Barack Obama and left chief rival Newt Gingrich reeling but vowing to fight on.

With 70 percent of the vote counted, Romney had 47 percent of the vote to Gingrich’s 32 percent in the largest of the four Republican presidential nominating contests so far this year.

Television networks projected Romney as the winner just as the last polls closed in Florida.

The victory enabled Romney, the wealthy former Massachusetts governor and private equity firm executive, to rebound from his decisive loss to Gingrich in the January 21 South Carolina primary.

The well-funded and well-organized Romney surged in opinion polls in Florida after aggressively pressing Gingrich in two debates and pounding him with negative advertising.

The campaign for the Republican nomination to challenge Obama, a Democrat, in the November 6 election now tilts in Romney’s favor with seven contests in February in which he could win or do well, starting with Nevada on Saturday.

The Florida victory also may widen a rift between establishment Republicans who back Romney and conservative voters who favor Gingrich, a dynamic that could complicate the party’s effort to oust Obama in November.

“As this primary unfolds, our opponents in the other party have been watching, and they like to comfort themselves with the thought that a competitive campaign will leave us divided and weak,” Romney told a jubilant crowd in his victory speech in which he focused on Obama after two weeks of clobbering Gingrich.

“But I’ve got news for them. A competitive primary does not divide us. It prepares us, and we will win,” Romney added.

The Florida primary was the fourth in the series of state-by-state contests to pick the Republican nominee. Romney has triumphed in two of the first four contests, having also won in New Hampshire and coming in second in Iowa and South Carolina.

Romney was helped by the millions of dollars in negative television ads against Gingrich that undermined the argument advanced by the former speaker of the House of Representatives that he is the conservative heir to Republican President Ronald Reagan.

Gingrich fought back with ads of his own, castigating Romney as a party insider and elite friend of Wall Street – and called him “for all practical purposes a liberal.” But Gingrich did not have the same amount of money as Romney, who had used a similar advertising spree to cut Gingrich down to size in Iowa.

“It is now clear that this will be a two-person race between the conservative leader Newt Gingrich and the Massachusetts moderate,” Gingrich told his supporters after the primary.

The next contest is the Nevada caucuses on Saturday, followed next Tuesday by caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota and a primary in Missouri.

‘THIS DOGFIGHT IN FLORIDA’

“I think both of them are damaged by this dogfight in Florida,” veteran Republican strategist Ed Rollins said of Romney and Gingrich. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it in a presidential campaign.”

Winning Florida demonstrated Romney’s ability to compete strongly in a major political battleground state with a broad voter base that includes a diverse electorate including Tea Party conservatives, evangelical Christians and Cuban-Americans.

He kept his focus on the U.S. economy and Florida’s 9.9 percent unemployment rate, insisting his background as a private equity executive gives him the economic acumen to help the country create jobs.

“I voted for Romney. I think he’ll create jobs,” said Dino De Cicco, 38, of Melbourne Beach.

But the Florida campaign revealed that Republicans still hold doubts about Romney. Conservatives feel he has flip-flopped on some major issues and lacks a spine.

“Romney is not a conservative,” said Richard Jeske, 66, an Orlando security guard who voted for Gingrich.

These are concerns that Gingrich hopes to take advantage of as he tries to hang on until March when a number of Southern states vote.

The defeat was a dispiriting one for Gingrich, who was unable to recreate in Florida the late surge of support in South Carolina from undecided voters that carried him to a shock victory.

Gingrich is vowing to fight on until Republicans hold their convention to nominate their candidate in late August, a battle he pledges will be for the heart and soul of the conservative movement.

Gingrich supporters hoisted banners at his Florida party that read “46 states to go.”

Romney still narrowly trails Gingrich in some national polls. But many analysts believe a double-digit victory in the “Sunshine State” cements his status as front-runner as the national Republican nomination contest continues.

According to exit polls by CBS, 62 percent of the Republican voters said the economy was the most important issue to them. Romney has campaigned hard saying he is best placed to fix the economy based on his experience as a businessman.

“(Romney’s) a businessman. He knows how to make money. If he makes promises, he’ll keep them,” said Frank Lobue, a retired utility company employee, who voted in St. Petersburg.

Voters also said in exit polls that they very concerned about picking a candidate who could beat Obama.

(Additional reporting by Ros Krasny, Sam Youngman, Jane Sutton and David Adams; editing by Mary Milliken)

There’s a new phenomenon in Washington: the Hispanic super-PAC, which aims to give political voice to the nation’s fastest-growing demographic.

Two have cropped up since the beginning of the year. Another that formed as a regular PAC in 2010 has relaunched as a super-PAC, expanding its efforts from a single House district to 15. And at least one other Hispanic PAC is considering making the leap to super-PAC status.

Some are liberal, some conservative. Some plan to target House and Senate races, others the presidential race. All share the belief that they are uniquely positioned to empower Hispanics in a way that the political parties have not and cannot.

“We see an opportunity, because there’s a gap here,” said Angelette Aviles of Hispanic Vote PAC, a conservative group that formed the third week in January. “Even with the Republican Party, they say they have Hispanic outreach, but they never dedicate a budget to it. We’re helping to bridge that gap.”

Their arrival creates an unusual conundrum for good-governance advocates: The under-representation of Hispanics in American politics is widely recognized, and any effort to engage Hispanic voters is generally met with applause. But the rise of the Hispanic super-PAC represents an even greater influx of the unaccountable, unlimited election cash against which both parties have railed.

“McCain-Feingold was supposed to increase transparency in our campaign finance,” said a Republican Party source. “It clearly hasn’t. These super-PACs are funneling money all over the place.”

Those doubting the increasing importance of the Hispanic electorate need look no further than swing states such as Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. And in Florida, the GOP presidential candidates have been actively courting the Hispanic vote with Spanish-language ads and vicious attacks on each other’s immigration policies. Almost 1.5 million Hispanics are registered to vote in Tuesday’s presidential primary in Florida — more than 13 percent of the electorate there, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

A heterogeneous population representing multiple ethnic backgrounds and cultures, Hispanics are difficult to pigeonhole politically but have historically trended Democratic. But growing evidence suggests the potential for that to change, creating an opening for Republicans and a dilemma for Democrats.

“Republicans don’t need a large number of Hispanics. All they need to do is get a few points in each of these states and shave off that margin, and Democrats have a problem,” said Joe Velasquez of the American Latino Alliance PAC.

Velasquez’s group formed in mid-January and is putting together a muscular fundraising and campaign structure, bringing on the polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and Hispanic media guru James Aldrete. The super-PAC plans to support President Obama’s reelection and Democratic Senate candidates in seven states: Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Arizona, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico.

“We’re a very, very, very partisan Democratic operation,” Velasquez said. “We’re going to be heavy with the president.”

Another group, the American Worker PAC, intends to spend at least $5 million during the cycle, concentrating its efforts on 15 marginal House districts that have Hispanic populations of 25 percent or higher. 

“2012 is the first time in American history that Latinos will have a chance to flex their power,” said the PAC’s leader, former union operative Chuck Rocha.

The PAC’s Latino Project went on the air in Texas this month against Rep. Francisco “Quico” Canseco (R-Texas) with radio ads blasting him as a bank executive who has forgotten whom he represents in Congress.

“Not surprising,” the ad says. “This is the same Quico Canseco who was slapped with over $700,000 in liens for unpaid taxes and fees, but refuses to consider raising taxes on himself and fellow millionaires.”

Canseco spokesman Scott Yeldell dismissed the Hispanic character of the group, calling it a consortium of big labor groups shilling for Democrats who despise Canseco’s pro-growth policies.

“While they may have decided to call themselves the ‘Latino Project,’ this is a misnomer for their super-PAC,” Yeldell said. “Ethnicity has nothing to do with this group or the issues they are wrong about.”

What is striking about these Hispanic super-PACs is their lack of emphasis on immigration policy. The conservative Hispanic Vote PAC isn’t going to touch the issue, while other groups said immigration may or may not be one aspect of their advocacy.

Polling consistently shows that Hispanic voters prioritize issues like jobs, education and healthcare over immigration. But candidates and parties generally center their outreach to the community on immigration, in the absence of another specific issue they feel speaks directly to the Hispanic community.

A Democratic National Committee spokesman declined to comment for this story. But a Democratic official in a Southwestern state said Hispanic super-PACs could succeed where the parties have struggled, by tailoring a broad-based economic message to the concerns of Hispanic voters and targeting the Spanish-language media.

“Those groups will be more effective, if they are able to do it right, than frankly our party or any others, because they can focus on a specific set of needs,” the official said.

By law, parties and candidates cannot coordinate with super-PACs, which can accept unlimited contributions from corporations and individuals to spend supporting candidates and attacking their opponents. But Republican National Committee spokeswoman Alexandra Franceschi said the GOP wants to see Hispanics involved at every level of the Republican Party.

“We think the fact that these super-PACs are focused on the Hispanic vote shows the growing importance of the Hispanic electorate, and how important it will be in the 2012 election,” she said.

The difference that super-PACs could make in ushering in a new era of influence for Hispanics in American politics could be profound. 

David Mason, a former Federal Election Commission chairman now with the Aristotle consulting firm, said Hispanic super-PACs should be wary of party-oriented politics. But if they can develop into a mature grassroots movement with the ability to raise money internally, they could parallel the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, whose influence transcends elections and helps set the legislative agenda in Washington.

And Joseph Birkenstock, former chief counsel for the DNC who has also advised Stephen Colbert’s super-PAC, said the phenomenon could help the Hispanic community achieve its goals quicker than African-Americans, who faced a lag of more than a century between the Civil War and their community’s emergence as a potent political force.

“Happily, it’s not going to take that long for the Hispanic community to find its voice,” he said.

WEST PALM BEACH — Lost in Herman Cain’s surprise endorsement of Newt Gingrich Saturday night at the Kravis Center was a rousing speech by Rep. Allen West, who received a bigger applause and ovation than either Gingrich or Cain.

West gave a 10 minute speech at the Lincoln Day Dinner, telling a very approving audience that, “We need to let President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and my dear friend the chairman of the Democratic National Committee (Debbie Wasserman Schultz), let them know Florida ain’t on the table.”

West then told his rivals to, “Take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America.”

West was already expected to have a tough reelection campaign, but could find himself in an even more Democratic district because of redistricting. West challenged his rival party.

“This is not about 1 percent or 99 percent. This is about 100 percent,” West said. “This is about 100 percent of America, and I will not stand back and watch anyone defame, degrade or destroy that which my father fought for, my older brother, my father-in-law, my nephew and all my friends in uniform. I will not allow President Obama to take the United States of America and destroy it.

“If that means I’m the No. 1 target for the Democratic party, all I have to say is one thing: Bring it on.”

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Tim Burke, Publisher, The Palm Beach Post.

President Barack Obama didn’t turn his State of the Union speech into an overt pitch for his reelection, but he did push back against his Republican rivals in his address.

West Wing officials chided reporters earlier Tuesday for assuming that he would use the prime-time perch to deliver a campaign stemwinder, saying he planned a substantive address that would not deviate in tone from other speeches to Congress.

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But a closer look at the rhetoric shows that Obama had some big targets in mind — both in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail.

Here’s a look at what he said and what he meant.

What he said: [W]e need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes. Tax reform should follow the Buffett Rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes.

What he meant: Here’s looking at you, Mitt.

Translation: Obama couldn’t have asked for better timing to roll out the details of his so-called Buffett Rule — on the same day that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney revealed that he paid a 14 percent rate on his taxes.

The president didn’t need to mention Romney by name: The target of his remarks was clear.

By finally setting a specific target for a minimum tax rate, Obama is clarifying the terms of a heated debate over wealth and taxes that will dominate the presidential campaign through the fall.

Obama even used Romney’s own language on the politics of envy to defend the call for higher taxes.

“We don’t begrudge financial success in this country,” Obama said. “We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it’s not because they envy the rich.”

What he said: As long as I’m president, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.

What he meant: Where’s my pen to sign this stack of executive orders? Who’s up next for a recess appointment?

Translation: Obama hasn’t shown much deference to Congress in the past few months, and he signaled Tuesday that nothing will change as long as lawmakers block his proposals.

That means Obama will continue to circumvent Congress whenever he can, issuing more “We Can’t Wait” executive orders and perhaps even appointing more stalled nominees when lawmakers leave town during legislative recesses. He infuriated Republicans last month by unilaterally appointing a new consumer watchdog and three new members to the National Labor Relations Board.

White House officials recently have tried to walk back earlier statements that Obama has given up on Congress for the year, but the president made clear in this speech that he has limited patience for the Hill.

“You can call this class warfare all you want,” he said, as Mr Buffett’s secretary looked on from the box of the First Lady Michelle Obama, “But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.”

Mr Obama attacked the “reckless” and “bad” behaviour of the banks that had caused the financial crisis and left millions of innocent Americans “holding the bag”, urging Congress to invest in rejuvenating America’s industry and infrastructure.

“Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that does the same. It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody,” he said.

After a year in which bitter ideological divisions between Democrats and Republicans have paralysed the US Congress, Mr Obama said it was little wonder that most American’s were cynical about politics and considered “Washington is broken”.

He cited the teamwork shown by the Navy SEALS that had captured and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last year, and urged both parties in Congress to stop their “perpetual campaign of mutual destruction” and build consensus around common sense ideas.

“We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”

Today, in what is widely seen as the de facto start of his election campaign, Mr Obama will embark on a three-day tour of five key ‘swing’ states, including Iowa, Nevada and Arizona where pollsters say that the outcome of November’s elections will very likely be determined.

A new poll released on the eve of the speech by ABC News/Washington Post showed Mr Obama’s approval rating up by five points this month to 53 per cent as US unemployment continued to fall.

In a sign of the bitter debates to come, the Republican Party accused Mr Obama of presiding over an “explosion” of government spending and seeking to divide America at a time when tough measures to curb spending and stimulate real economic activity were most needed.

“No feature of the Obama Presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others,” said Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, a middle-ground Republican who many in his party had hoped would run for the presidency.

Far from helping the middle class, Mr Daniels said that Mr Obama’s “grand experiment in trickle-down government” had failed, stifling the true potential of American entrepreneurs.

“A government as big and bossy as this one is maintained on the backs of the middle class, and those who hope to join it,” he added as he delivered his party’s official response.

Earlier on Tuesday, Mr Romney, the long-term national front-runner for the Republican nomination to face Mr Obama, promised to lead America down a very different road if he was elected in November.

“This election is a choice between two very different destinies,” he said in a major speech delivered on the primary campaign trail in Tampa, Florida.

“This President puts his faith in government. We put our faith in the American people. Ours is the party of free enterprise, free markets, and consumer choice. …He leads the party of big government. He believes in ever-expanding entitlement. He’s wrong. We’re right.”

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Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Thursday that Newt Gingrich was acting like leftist community organizer Saul Alinsky for his criticisms of Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital.

“What the hell are you doing, Newt? I expect this from Saul Alinsky. This is what Saul Alinsky taught Barack Obama, and what you’re saying is part of the reason we’re in so much trouble right now,” said Giuliani on Fox News.

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Alinsky was a writer best known for his book, “Rules for Radicals,” which is said to have influenced Barack Obama’s thinking as a young community organizer.

The New York Republican and 2008 presidential candidate said that he was “shocked” by the line of attack, calling it “ignorant” and “dumb.”

“I’m outraged about what [Newt] and Rick [Perry], who is a very close friend of mine, I’m shocked what they’re doing. It’s ignorant, dumb. It’s building something we should be fighting in America, ignorance of the economic system, playing on the dumbest, most ridiculous ideas about how you grow jobs,” Giuliani said.

“What they’re doing to Mitt right now is totally unfair, and bad for the Republican Party,” he said.

The former mayor said that he had visited China with Bill Clinton recently, and quipped that the Chinese “are the real capitalists; they should be teaching capitalism 101 to the American Congress.”