Florida Primary 2008: Supporting Mitt Romney in Orlando, Florida

There are only two or three days in the year in which I am willing to get out of bed early, one of those days is Christmas, the others are typically election days, when I try to get to the polls before work. Maybe it’s the fact that I was born in a communist country where the words “Democracy and Republic” where a foreign concept, or maybe it’s the fact that I live in Florida and I’ve learned from past experience that my vote really does matter. Whatever the reason may be, I take my civic duty seriously enough to get myself out of bed earlier than I normally do, and make my way down to my precinct to cast my vote. Here then is the odyssey that led to vote I cast for Mitt Romney in the Florida Primary.

Prelude to the Florida Primary:

Wanting to be a major player in the Presidential race, Florida moved up their primary this year. It came with a cost, as delegates were lost by both parties. Still, it made for an exciting process to think that we would play a role in the early squabble for a nomination.

No sooner was the primary over in Michigan that a slow steady stream of campaign ads began to bombard Floridians. Besides the usual TV commercials, and radio ads, I received recorded phone calls from the campaigns of two of the Republican candidates, Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul. The two front runners for my party, Romney and McClain did not bother with me, a slight that I was willing to overlook.

Giuliani ‘s people called to invited me to an appearance that their candidate had in town, an appearance that was called “tepid” by “Meet the Press” on Saturday morning. Ron Paul’s people were willing to answer questions I might have on their candidate.

Taking a different strategic approach, Senator John McClain’s ads on the other hand were not really seen until right before Tuesday when he received an endorsement from the Florida Governor and a Florida Senator. Along with the endorsement came a misleading ad about Romney, saying that Romney favored a time table for Iraq. So much for the straight shooter that is John McCain, I thought. Though the attack was probably affective, since one of my co-workers quoted the ad back to me as a reason to he was voting for McCain. Absent from the media blitz seemed to be Huckabee whose campaign funding is said to be at an old-time low.

Omen of things to come:

On Tuesday, the day of the primary, my son who is in 6th grade had a caucus in his Social Studies class. I had taken some time over the weekend to go over each candidate with him, after which I asked him to chose his two favorites and go to each candidate’s website and learn more about them. He did that, choosing Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Eventually he settled on Romney, and off to school he went. It turned out that he was the only supporter for the candidate in class, as both McCain and O’Bama swept the majority of the vote. “Dad, Hillary Clinton also got just one vote, and the girl that chose her, picked her name out of a hat,” he said. Well, at least there is that, I thought, small consolation. Figuring that children often represent the views of their parents at that stage, I thought perhaps Mitt Romney might not fare well in Florida.

Separation of Church and State, and Precinct 433:

In Orlando, I fall under Precinct 433, which is housed in a church, though the name of the church escapes me. I thought it funny that in a country whose believes included the separation of church and state, that a church building would be used as a precinct. Then again, I remembered that my own chapel was being used as precinct this year. Though voter turn out in the state was said to be at a record high, at 7:00 AM my precinct was fairly empty, perhaps a tribute to the early voting which had taken place on Saturday at the local library. Still, needing to get to work on time, I was glad to see that my precinct was rather empty, and I ended up being the 23^rd person to vote there that morning.

The workers at Precinct 433 were courteous enough, but not overly interested in seeing my ID, though I kept politely insisting that they should. Apparently, all you had to do was tell them your name and sign for the ballot, after which they assigned a number to the ballot issued.

Strangely absent from the whole affair were sign waving supporters for any of the candidates. In fact, campaign signs, which usually litter the streets, where absent all around. Occasionally a stray one could be seen by the side of a road, and usually they belonged to Romney.

Waiting for the Results:
All week long they kept saying it would be a fairly close race between Romney and McCain, but early reports were sketchy at best. I turned on talk radio on the way home, and found Sean Hannity coming down on Senator McCain for his misleading last minute ads. The race itself seem too close to call that that stage, though it looked like each of the top two candidates would earn over 30% of the votes cast.

As the night wore on, McCain began to inch away. One of my friends called me at 9 AM, his kid needing help with Algebra homework. During our conversation he informed me that McCain held a 3 % lead over Romney, but that the results from the Florida panhandle were not in yet. At that stage I really did not think it would matter, but why burst his bubble.

The Morning After:

Senator John McCain took Florida with 36% percent of the votes to Romney’s 31%. The candidate, who was almost counted out a few months back when his campaign hit financial difficulties, was now a front runner. Romney for his part was not conceding the race, stating so in a televised interview. In the meantime, Giuliani’s race appears over.

Epilog:

I took a quick count of the states involved in Super Tuesday, and tried to figure out how my candidate would do the rest of the way. There has to be an easier way to do this I thought, then again, I was once again grateful to be part of the process.