Florida GOP Primary Tonight - Open Thread

Look no further! Yesterday, CPAC officially cut Ron Paul from the roster this year!! http://bit.ly/yNGAKQ

It's disappointing Ron Paul didn't make more of dent in Florida. It's hardly a crucial state, but I would've liked to see him finish closer to Santorum and a much smaller margin between Newt Romney.

I watched it on CNN..something I'll never do again. 50% commercials 30% ugly graphics flying at the screen and 20% Wolf Blitzer being the most boring anchorman in documented history. How can people watch this tripe? Half of the reports were about the reporters reporting. Half of the reporters on location weren't even used, and the other half got to file a tiny bit of what I call 'sideshow-reporting'. Here's a summary:

"ooh.. look at the desk with the 3 Romney supporters. Wow, the grassroots is so active. Look at the 3 signs we conveniently grouped together on the side of the road right next to them. Back to you Wolf." "Thank you Dana... wow, the excitement is certainly palpable. Now over to our patented voting booth cam. This is really special people, never seen before. We have a camera, on a tripod, inside a voting station. How remarkable is that? There must be at least 1, 2..euh.. 3 people in line waiting to vote. When we return after the break we will have another countdown timer for you and John King will try to draw some doodles on the magic wall. But first some commercials." Commercial 1 - are you in debt? we fix. 2 - buy drugs 3 - buy car. 4 - are you in debt (again?) we fix. 5 - buy car insurance.

But I got my dad, 2 sisters, a brother and cousin to vote for Ron Paul.

Lot of good it did.

What y'all need to understand is that with the deliberate MSM blackout of Ron Paul, even $100 million of campaign ads in florida would not have been enough to balance coverage and bring in the older bloc of voters for Ron.

That's what people need to understand about the MSM blackout. Its not designed for the young people on the internet, its designed to control the opinion of the older Boomer/Greatest Generation voting bloc, the most powerful in the nation.

Florida has a very high concentration of these voters. The psychology of these voters is such that if the candidate isn't covered and isn't discussed on TV, he's not a "serious contender". And that's if they even know who the guy is at all. Therefore a vote for that guy is a wasted vote and a wasted trip to the polls because "he cannot win". Its the deeply flawed but somehow very popular "picking the winner" voting logic.

There is that and the fact that older folks are typically better off financially, perhaps more insulated from the ongoing global financial crisis, and far more likely to vote for someone who isn't going to rock the boat, someone who is status quo "more of the same". When you're older, you generally dislike change more.

I've heard this discussed on the board over and over that the internet generations need to reach out and inform our parents and grandparents about what's really going on, but to be honest the great majority of them don't really want to listen. My parents and grandparents only started to listen to me a little after the 2008 Great Depression II set in. But I knew something was wrong with America as early as 2002 and talked to them about it(I was only 22 yrs old). It took them 6 years to start listening to me. Even today they don't really believe that NDAA is real. I guess they just don't want to believe it. And they only take Ron Paul seriously because I do, but they don't really have plans to vote for him because "its too hard for him to win".

Honestly, the Paul Campaign's strategy is the best possible strategy out there given the demographic composition of our country today. I don't really believe that the older vote can be converted to Ron Paul in the primaries, and that's not a defeatist attitude just a realistic opinion that Florida has proven in spades.

Throughout history the ignorant have far outnumbered the informed. That's the best argument against majority rule democracy you can find right there. In the past the informed usually comprised the elite and those trying to become the elite. Today, as in 1776, we as the informed are attempting to free the ignorant as well as ourselves.

In 1776 our ancestors had to use force to accomplish what we are trying to do today through a peaceful political process. I hope to God that it doesn't come to force for us as well. That's why we cannot give up on this until the last delegate is chosen and the vote is held in Tampa.

I don't really get how anyone - even neocons - would consider voting for Mitt Romney. He's done what, one interview? This is because he wants to shift to the middle in the general election. He purposely takes the vaguest positions possible and his goal seems to be to get by without saying anything that people will remember. I'm beginning to wonder if the Newt surge was manufactured by Romney backers. If he didn't have anyone to run negative ads against, he wouldnt be able to run any ads at all because there sure as hell isn't anything positive to say about him.

Hmm... I lived in Florida for the last year and I can say I know of at least 15 people who planned on voting Paul. I honestly DO believe in voter fraud, how could you not? 900 dead people voted in s.c.?