Few Americans are more fascinated with the politics in Florida than New Englanders like me who spend half their time in the Sunshine State to escape the cold and snow of their birthplaces. The stereotypes ring true, it seems, and the point of view of Floridians often stuns the political minds of those native to the Rt. 128 Beltway and north to the Canadian border.

Here the Yankee urges to protect one’s space, revere minimum formality and decorum, and prefer candidates who not only can spell, “integrity,” but also have a passing familiarity with that concept is met with a very different universe. In the Floridian world, the polling place staff calls you, “Sweetheart,”  “Honey,” or some other diminutive term of endearment that might generate a federal discrimination lawsuit in Keene. As for integrity, Florida’s Governor Rick Scott was elected after he was found guilty of Medicare fraud (14 felonies and $600 million in federal restitution later.)

Finally the state dress code—even in the relatively elegant southern part of the state as opposed to the panhandle—rarely gets more formal than shorts, baseball caps, and flip-flops (and the de rigueur handgun in one’s purse or glove compartment-- registered, of course.)

Given these trends, it is even more amazing that a guy like Mitt Romney did as well as he did in Tuesday’s primary. Gingrich kept using the term “Massachusetts Moderate” to describe his opponent: in these parts that is the equivalent of calling your rival an axe murderer or child molester. Popular ex-governor Jeb Bush pointedly refused to endorse his former gubernatorial colleague despite what the New York Times reported was an ardent attempt by Romney himself, via emails and phone calls, to get the Bush blessing. (That is akin to a Kennedy pleading for a kind word from the Archdiocese of Boston and getting an endless busy signal.)

Clearly a candidate like Romney who, as governor of the Bay State, managed to allow women control of their own ovaries and gays and lesbians privacy in their own partnerships is anathema under the palms. That Romney helped implement a health plan popular with those enrolled in it and with the federal government which used it as a model yet derided by conservatives under the spell of “free enterprise” and the medical and pharmaceutical lobbies only adds to his perceived aura of evil from the Keys to the Alabama border.

Yet, in the end, Romney triumphed and added 50 delegate votes to his column. Gingrich, of course, vows to fight on but, in the end, it will be the former Speaker’s fund-raising skills-- not his political philosophy-- that will decide when and if he will fall on his sword before the Tampa GOP convention.

Too bad the Republicans didn’t choose Orlando for that convention: Disneyworld seems so much more appropriate as a backdrop for that party lately.

Just sayin"...

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(This was riginally written for my regular column in the Keene Sentinel)