It All Comes Down To Florida

It's about a 99% bet that the winner of the Republican nomination will be announced tonight in the Sunshine State. Even St. Rudy of the 9/11 admits this. Sure, the Super Duper Tuesday votes won't yield a clean sweep; Mike Huckabee is trotting out a Southern strategy that has him leading in Tennessee. But given that No Republican candidate is on the air with ads in any Super Tuesday state, the free media boost out of Florida for Mitt Romney or John McCain will be extremely important, especially for McCain, who soaks up the media love like no other candidate. That's why it's been so acrimonious; both sides know that Florida is really the end of the road for this race. So Romney and McCain lob charges of "You're the liberal! No, you're the liberal!" at each other, trying to appeal to conservatives in this closed primary.

Mr. Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, began attacking at dawn, accusing Mr. McCain of allying himself with liberal Democrats in the Senate and betraying conservative principles on legislation involving immigration, the environment and campaign finance.

“If you want that kind of a liberal Democratic course as president, then you can vote for him,” Mr. Romney said at a Texaco gas station in West Palm Beach at 6:30 a.m. “But those three pieces of legislation, those aren’t conservative. Those aren’t Republican.”

Mr. McCain volleyed back by describing Mr. Romney as a serial flip-flopper who had taken multiple positions on a variety of issues, including gay rights, global warming and immigration. “People, just look at his record as governor,” Mr. McCain said at a shipyard in Jacksonville. “He has been entirely consistent. He has consistently taken two sides of every major issue, sometimes more than two.”

Josh Marshall comments on how close the polls have been, and the winner is really up in the air. But with what's on the line being so clear, Florida voters aren't likely to throw away their vote. Expect moderates to move to McCain, and conservatives to line up with Romney, and the result will reveal itself in which faction has those numbers.