Rasmussen has Romney and McCain tied for first place, while Zogby shows McCain leading by 4 percentage points, with a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percentage points.

I’m hopeful that Romney can pull off a win today!

While not a Romney supporter, if faced with the choice of Romney or McCain, there’s no question Romney is the much better choice. Best of luck Geoff

Don’t wish me luck, wish luck to my main man Mitt. All I can do is vote early and often. This is Florida, after all.

By the way, John M, thanks for thinking of me on this important day. After we put our kids to bed, I will be sitting with my wife in front of the TV set watching the returns. And regardless of who wins, I will say a prayer tonight for the United States that we will always be a righteous people trying to do the best in God’s eyes.

You may be interested to hear that I voted early and I haven’t really been thinking about the elections very much at all since early Monday morning when I heard of Pres. Hinckley’s death. I spent all Monday afternoon thinking about work and family home evening with my kids (always an interesting proposition with a rambunctious 2-year-old boy). Today I woke up and looked at the latest polls. There are several that have not been getting much play but can be seen on pollster.com (look at the PPP results) that have Romney solidly ahead in Florida. I stick by my prediction that Romney will win in Florida.

When the campaign started, I had no strong feeling towards any candidate. In fact, Romney was handicapped because I felt I was expected to vote for him, and I tend to run away from the status quo. That said, after looking at the candidates for some kind of inspiration, I ultimately did choose Romney. Not for his record or what he said, but because of what others who know him and worked with him said about him. I wish him tremendous luck today and for the rest of the campaign.

This is exciting, I’ll be watching the returns closely. I honestly believe Florida could make or break Romney, and up until the Florida Governor endorsed McCain, I thought he had it sewn up.

Mark Larsen of WWBA AM 1040 in Tampa Bay interviewed Mitt Romney Tuesday morning.

Here’s the YouTube of the interview (8 min.). Well worth listening to before you vote.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6lAFfLy05_Y

Mike, I listened to the interview, and I do encourage everybody to listen to it before they vote. It will explain very well why Ron Paul will be in the single digits in Florida while Mitt will get 30 percent-plus.

By the way, if you think Mormons are dominating the Romney campaign, think again, especially in Florida. The main South Florida organizer of the Romney campaign just sent out an e-mail saying that the campaign organizers are meeting tonight at a local bar. I won’t name the bar, but suffice to say that this is not a fru-fru yuppie bar. This is the kind of place where real men and women go to get real drinks and get real drunk. (I should know — I used to go there a lot before my baptism). So, either way, the campaign organizers want to blow off a lot of steam tonight. They’ve been working hard the last few months.

Surprisingly, Geoff, I agree with you. Mitt Romney will get far more votes than Ron Paul because voters will always prefer a charismatic candidate who tells them what they want to hear over an uncharismatic candidate who tells them the hard truth.

Romney was backed into a corner in that interview, and he decided to take an out-of-context shot at Ron Paul and hang up rather than explain why his ideas are superior to Paul’s. But they aren’t, so he can’t — all he can do is snicker.

Romney has nothing new to offer to solve America’s substantive problems. And Republicans will only learn this the hard way, come November.

Romney wasn’t backed into a corner at all. He chuckled at what seemed patently ridiculous to him–then the host calls him on laughing at Ron Paul and so Romney tells him the reasons why Paul is getting laughed at.

Now I gotta say that I rather like the way Paul seems to talk from a set of principles rather than a planned set of rhetorical retorts. But even so, the biggest problem with Paul is that he hasn’t moved into the 21st Century on a few (very big) issues. It’s all good and wonderful to stick to the Constitution–but the impact his purist approach would have on (say) our foreign policy would be … well it’s completely unthinkable.

It’s sad that he’s been reduced to a court jester–many of the prophets have been similarly received by a deaf public. But then again, a less stereotypical take on that scenario as suggested by current prophetic leadership in the church would indicate that an openness to globalization is essential to sound political leadership nowadays.

Paul is definitely right on some things, but he takes his virtues to an unhealthy extreme on others.

Oh, and Geoff, we hope to hear some good news from Florida in the next little while. I hope your prophecy is fulfilled!

I love it when people who support the Iraq invasion (and a strike on Iran) start talking about Ron Paul views being an “unhealthy extreme.” [g]

But best of luck to you in the Florida horse race, Geoff!

McCain wins florida according to the press.

To me it was definitely a year of “none of the above” so I don’t feel too bad. The big question will be whether McCain loses to Clinton or Obama.

I should say that some of the real nasty attack ads by McCain the last two days were pretty disturbing. Not that Romney has a whole lot to be proud of in his own campaign (IMO) but McCain’s nastiness was definitely worse.

I am ashamed to say that John McCain is one of the senators representing the state where I love. I can with confidence, though, that he does not represent me and he does not have my vote.

John McCain is for open borders (check to see who advises him on hispanic voting issues), higher taxes (he voted against the Bush tax cuts), he supports allowing illegals now in the country to have a path to citizenship and he is a career politician.

If McCain wins the nomination, I will cast a protest vote for Pat Paulson. Gone, but not forgotten.

The really amazing thing about the McCain surge is that this may be the first time a political party nominates for President a man whom everyone in the party hates.

Yeah, Mike, it’s really difficult for me to understand how a Republican could support McCain. I can very easily understand how an independent or conservative Democrat could support him — the Lieberman endorsement makes perfect sense to me. But McCain loves sticking it to Republicans in every possible way — and yet Florida Republicans voted for him. I have never talked to a McCain supporter, so I don’t even know how to start trying to explain it. I know lots of Rudy supporters, a few Huckabee supporters, plenty of Ron Paul supporters and obviously a lot of Romney supporters. I can understand the case for each of them. But McCain is simply Bob Dole without the long tradition of Republican party involvement (people forget that Dole was a party stalwart for decades before 1996). I fear we may get the same result this year that we got in 1996.

Here’s an interesting perspective:

Ron Paul knew he wouldn’t do well in Florida, so he didn’t put much time or money into it.

Mitt Romney hoped to do well in Florida, so he put quite a bit of time and money into it.

Florida is a winner-take-all state for delegates — McCain gets all 57. So Paul’s 3% means as much as Romney’s 31% — absolutely nothing.

(Yes, there’s a larger perspective I’m ignoring here, but this particular microcosm is fascinating.)