By Billy House
Media General News Service
Media General News Service
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TAMPA -- Mitt Romney returned to Florida's politically crucial Interstate 4 corridor today, stressing that his business resume gives him an edge over John McCain and other GOP presidential rivals.
It's a tack that helped Romney win the party's primary in economically hard-hit Michigan, his native state. And Romney hopes it will work in Tuesday's Florida's presidential primary, as the slumping economy may be fast surpassing national security as the top voter concern nationwide.
But whether voters in Florida have yet to become more worried about the dollar's slide than the Iraq war and terrorism, is not so certain, say pollsters.
“Obviously, the economy is getting to be a bigger concern. And obviously, Romney wants it to become a bigger concern,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute, which is polling Floridians this week.
Latest public polls have indicated the winner-take-all race for Florida's 57 GOP delegates is a statistical tie between McCain, Romney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee -- with McCain entering the week with a slight edge over the field.
Romney on Wednesday chose the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute as the setting for his Tampa campaign stop, followed by an appearance at a sparsely-attended afternoon rally of about 150 supporters outside a nearby conference center.
In seeking to set himself apart, Romney said at a Moffitt news conference: “You have that executive leadership where you learn how to pull together a team of people to listen to different ideas, to establish a course of action, to hire the people to carry out that course of action, to get budgets for it.”
“And there are others whose experience has been very different,” Romney said.
Romney also said Washington was broken. And he took a not-so-subtle swipe at McCain, without mentioning him by name, saying the solution is not “sending the same people back – just putting them in different chairs.”
But mostly, Romney emphasized his 25 years of business experience, his leading the 2002 Olympics, and his work as a Massachusetts governor.
Romney earlier toured a lab at the center and delivered a speech to employees, describing how he has worked to help hospitals provide better care to more people, at a lower cost.
Is Romney's emphasis on his business background working?
Romney's strategy is almost the same as Giuliani’s.
Giuliani, who hopes Florida will save his troubled campaign, has flipped his early campaign emphasis from national security to his being an economic “fixer.
He told supporters in an e-mail today: "With the volatility in the stock markets leaving millions of Americans uncertain about the future, it's important that our next President have experience in turning around an economy in peril and putting people back to work. In New York, I was chief executive of the 17th largest economy in the world, cut taxes 23 times and cut a 10 percent unemployment rate in half."
Giuliani, like Romney, also has been attacking McCain's credentials to lead in tough economic times, criticizing the senator's votes against such things as cutting capital gains taxes.
Even the ballots on Tuesday could help to steer voters’ thoughts to economic concerns. The primary will include a ballot question on whether to amend the Florida state constitution to grant property tax relief, amid state budget woes.
With former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson out of the race, and Huckabee pulling back his resources in the state, there were clear signs Wednesday the McCain campaign itself was feeling some shift in the political terrain.
McCain's campaign suddenly launched a new TV ad in Florida declaring: "Floridians are concerned about the threat of radical Islamic extremism and their economic security.”
"There's no one who will work harder to protect our shores and protect your pocketbooks,” McCain's new ad states.
During the rally after the Moffitt visit, the Romney campaign sought to depict the Florida battle as boiling down to a two-way race between Romney and McCain, though acknowledging Romney continues to trail, even if slightly.
“A couple of points in not a big lead,” said Al Cardenas, the former Florida GOP chief who is chairing Romney's state campaign.
In returning to Tampa today, Romney again visited a crucial part of the state – the Tampa-Orlando Interstate-4 corridor -- that is home to about three-quarters of the state’s Republican votes and where Romney has strength.
At the rally, Cardenas was asked by another Romney supporter if the race "is it all going to come down to the I-4 corridor?”
“It always does," he said.
Reporter Marsha Mercer contributed to this report. Reporter Billy House can be reached at (202) 641-5080 or bhouse@mediageneral.com.
It's a tack that helped Romney win the party's primary in economically hard-hit Michigan, his native state. And Romney hopes it will work in Tuesday's Florida's presidential primary, as the slumping economy may be fast surpassing national security as the top voter concern nationwide.
But whether voters in Florida have yet to become more worried about the dollar's slide than the Iraq war and terrorism, is not so certain, say pollsters.
“Obviously, the economy is getting to be a bigger concern. And obviously, Romney wants it to become a bigger concern,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute, which is polling Floridians this week.
Latest public polls have indicated the winner-take-all race for Florida's 57 GOP delegates is a statistical tie between McCain, Romney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee -- with McCain entering the week with a slight edge over the field.
Romney on Wednesday chose the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute as the setting for his Tampa campaign stop, followed by an appearance at a sparsely-attended afternoon rally of about 150 supporters outside a nearby conference center.
In seeking to set himself apart, Romney said at a Moffitt news conference: “You have that executive leadership where you learn how to pull together a team of people to listen to different ideas, to establish a course of action, to hire the people to carry out that course of action, to get budgets for it.”
“And there are others whose experience has been very different,” Romney said.
Romney also said Washington was broken. And he took a not-so-subtle swipe at McCain, without mentioning him by name, saying the solution is not “sending the same people back – just putting them in different chairs.”
But mostly, Romney emphasized his 25 years of business experience, his leading the 2002 Olympics, and his work as a Massachusetts governor.
Romney earlier toured a lab at the center and delivered a speech to employees, describing how he has worked to help hospitals provide better care to more people, at a lower cost.
Is Romney's emphasis on his business background working?
Romney's strategy is almost the same as Giuliani’s.
Giuliani, who hopes Florida will save his troubled campaign, has flipped his early campaign emphasis from national security to his being an economic “fixer.
He told supporters in an e-mail today: "With the volatility in the stock markets leaving millions of Americans uncertain about the future, it's important that our next President have experience in turning around an economy in peril and putting people back to work. In New York, I was chief executive of the 17th largest economy in the world, cut taxes 23 times and cut a 10 percent unemployment rate in half."
Giuliani, like Romney, also has been attacking McCain's credentials to lead in tough economic times, criticizing the senator's votes against such things as cutting capital gains taxes.
Even the ballots on Tuesday could help to steer voters’ thoughts to economic concerns. The primary will include a ballot question on whether to amend the Florida state constitution to grant property tax relief, amid state budget woes.
With former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson out of the race, and Huckabee pulling back his resources in the state, there were clear signs Wednesday the McCain campaign itself was feeling some shift in the political terrain.
McCain's campaign suddenly launched a new TV ad in Florida declaring: "Floridians are concerned about the threat of radical Islamic extremism and their economic security.”
"There's no one who will work harder to protect our shores and protect your pocketbooks,” McCain's new ad states.
During the rally after the Moffitt visit, the Romney campaign sought to depict the Florida battle as boiling down to a two-way race between Romney and McCain, though acknowledging Romney continues to trail, even if slightly.
“A couple of points in not a big lead,” said Al Cardenas, the former Florida GOP chief who is chairing Romney's state campaign.
In returning to Tampa today, Romney again visited a crucial part of the state – the Tampa-Orlando Interstate-4 corridor -- that is home to about three-quarters of the state’s Republican votes and where Romney has strength.
At the rally, Cardenas was asked by another Romney supporter if the race "is it all going to come down to the I-4 corridor?”
“It always does," he said.
Reporter Marsha Mercer contributed to this report. Reporter Billy House can be reached at (202) 641-5080 or bhouse@mediageneral.com.