Tampa, Florida — After days of intense fingerpointing between the two leading Republican candidates for president, Mitt Romney avoided any direct mention of John McCain during a twenty-minute speech at a rally here this morning. Romney’s event at the Tampa Convention Center was held in the same room as a McCain rally yesterday evening. (I compared crowd sizes with another reporter who attended both events and our guess was that the Romney crowd was half the size of McCain’s, perhaps owing to the fact that it took place during business hours.) Romney started thirty minutes late and the crowd grew a bit after a group of new citizens — 700 of them were sworn in this morning just down the hall — wandered over. In the over-scripted world of political campaigns, the presence of the new Americans was genuinely moving, as they whooped and hollered after Romney recognized them and beamed when he later invited several of them on stage and introduced them as America’s newest citizens. It was a good political moment for Romney and an emotional moment for many people watching. (The barista at the Starbucks in the building told me she had almost come to tears several times this morning watching the new Americans celebrate their citizenship with dozens of photographs and lots of hugs.) Romney’s was twice as long as McCain’s last night and more enthusiastic. Unlike McCain, who spoke almost exclusively about national security (as Byron York notes here) Romney touched on several topics. One interesting contrast is his talk of strong families which, if I’m not mistaken, I’ve not heard McCain discuss once in the (perhaps) two dozens of his stump speeches I’ve attended over the past several months. I wasn’t taping, but Romney said something close to this paraphrase: I want our kids to understand that they should be married before they have babies. Romney promised to win the war in Iraq and chided Democrats for their answers in a recent debate when they suggested it was more important to withdraw than to win. But his comments about national security, which he got to after mentioning several other topics, felt more as if he were touching a base — must mention the war — than something that driving his campaign. And if we can determine campaign priorities through the exact science of sign observation, we know what Romney wants to emphasize. The two signs his campaign hung in the room read: “Washington is Broken” and “Economic Turnaround.” The toughest words for McCain came from State Rep. Trey Traviesa, who introduced Romney. His brief speech focused on the Arizona senator’s record. After ticking off many issues where he said McCain had abandoned his principles and his party, Traveisa concluded: “On all these issues, McCain had the opportunity to lead and instead he took a left.” (Interestingly, Romney’s positions on several of these issues — campaign finance, illegal immigration, the Bush tax cuts — were at one time closer to McCain’s than the one he has articulated on the campaign trail. No mention of that.) Said Traviesa: “Too many times, Mccain has hugged a liberal Democrat.” Those words probably appealed to Al Watton, a 73-year-old Republican who lives just outside of Tampa, who told me before the event started that he was supporting Romney because he doesn’t “like conservatives who cuddle up to Democrats.” Watton, who called Romney “George” several times during in our chat, says Romney is the second choice for his wife and him. “We’d love to be for Huckabee, but I don’t think he can be elected no matter how good he is.” So Romney it is.
