Romney seeks trail to blaze
Fla. contest has different demands
ORLANDO, Fla. - Seeking a winning path between a Vietnam War hero, a tough-talking former mayor, and a former Baptist minister, Mitt Romney told Florida voters yesterday that he will use his business experience to fix the ailing economy, while his campaign targeted appeals to Hispanics and Jews, key constituencies in the state's fragmented electorate.
Kicking off the start of an all-out four-man sprint to the primary on Jan. 29, the multimillionaire venture capitalist sought to address the anxieties of middle-class Floridians, who he said are being squeezed by high gas prices and the foreclosure crisis.
"What I'm worried about is people who are at the edge and who wonder, 'Can they put meals on the table for their kids' and 'Will they have good health insurance for their kids and themselves' and 'Will they be able to keep a job,' " he told 70 employees of Gate Petroleum in Jacksonville. "Those are the folks you really worry about when you see a recession."
As he rolled on a 400-mile bus tour down the Atlantic coast, he said his rivals would not be able to tackle basic economic concerns.
"I know there are a lot of people who are running for office, for president, who want to help steer our economy to a position of strength, but they've never had a job in the real economy. So how are they going do that?" Romney told 150 employees of
Romney also launched his first Spanish-language television advertisement, a spot running in the Miami area that features his son, Craig, who became fluent in Spanish while working as a missionary in Chile.
Romney is locked in a tight race in Florida with John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Huckabee, who are blazing their own trails in a state considered the biggest prize yet of the Republican nomination race and a gateway to Super Tuesday on Feb. 5.
Florida is the first state where all four top contenders are campaigning aggressively and the first whose primary is open only to Republicans. Romney aides said that rule would squeeze McCain, who drew support from independents to win the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries.
McCain's aides said his heroism in the Vietnam War and his record of cutting spending would play well with party loyalists, about 40 percent of whom have ties to the military.
Yesterday, McCain launched a television ad that highlights his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, his early support of the so-called surge in Iraq, and his reputation as a Senate maverick. He also courted Cuban-American voters in Miami's Little Havana, telling them he has had a long relationship with the community and was proud to have served on the USS Enterprise as it circled Cuba during the missile crisis in 1962.
Giuliani launched a Spanish-language television ad that promotes his proposals for tax cuts and a national fund for property insurance relief.
Huckabee is counting on the support of fellow evangelical Christians, who make up about one-fourth of the state's Republican voters.
Romney, who does not appear to have the same ready-made bloc of support as his rivals, packed his schedule with speaking engagements that include the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Latin Builders Association. He expanded his campaign operation, adding six field offices. Also, he sharpened his focus on voters' economic worries.
To note the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, he told several predominantly white audiences that King showed "how to bring down some of the barriers to fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence." And he posed for photos and shook hands with black families at a parade in Jacksonville.
"Who let the dogs out? Who? Who?" Romney called out, singing the chorus of a popular song while posing with children at the parade. Aides said he made the impromptu remark after a child asked him, "Who let you out?"
Admiring a child's gold necklace, Romney said, "You've got some bling-bling, too."
He made no formal remarks at the parade and left before it started. Walking back to his Winnebago, he was asked by a reporter what he would do to help those who face racial discrimination, and he said he would encourage children to get married before having babies and would improve their schools.
Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com. 