Mr. MO and Mitt win show

Column

In the end it was Mitt Romney and MO (as former Florida Gov. Bob Martinez calls "money" and "organization") that took Florida, the biggest prize to date in the Republican campaign to select a candidate to take on President Barack Obama in the fall.

This morning the contenders have left the state, leaving behind a primary campaign devoid of any ideas, any solutions, any dreams (other than a moon colony and kosher dinners for seniors) and Floridians wondering whether this is the best we've got. If they had any programs or nuts-and-bolts ideas, they were buried under an avalanche of name calling.

So far the governor hasn't said whether he will declare the state a disaster area and ask for federal help in cleaning up the sludge and mud that has rained on the state for weeks. Most Floridians probably are grateful this morning to turn on their televisions and get back to commercials fighting body odor or constipation.

The election results probably were more MO than Mitt, as a well-organized and well-financed machine held together a Florida Romney campaign whose candidate seldom appeared to be clicking with voters.

Romney turns out to have been aided by early voting. Nearly a third of the votes cast were the result of absentee and early voting by Floridians already inundated with Romney advertising.

If Romney ever understood the problems facing Floridians, or the rest of the United States, he never offered any ideas that appeared based in reality. Instead, he lumbered from one function to the next across the state, appearing more like a robotic audio animatronic escapee from Disney's Hall of Presidents than real.

Maybe the fact that Romney strategists could afford to blanket the state with a cloud of negative advertising overwhelmed everyone else. I've read that the Romney campaign and the so-called super-PAC spent as much as $17 million.

Rick Santorum and Ron Paul were almost absent from sight.

It was so overwhelming that there were times you wanted to check with Tampa General Hospital to see whether the other candidates might have been run over by a steamroller or some other machine. Technically, they probably were.

Newt Gingrich was no less vicious in his journey across the state. What he lacked in volume of hate was made up for in its general nastiness.

It's not that it was easy to campaign here. Florida is not for the fainthearted. A huge state geographically, it also is a cultural mix so richly diverse it changes not only from county to county but neighborhood to neighborhood.

The candidates must have had cheat sheets to remind them of which promises they had to make to which groups.

Now it's over. And despite all the threats and punitive measures taken against Florida for moving its primary up, Florida's voice was heard.

And it all but sealed the deal for Romney.