Mitt Romney

Why Florida Was A Dangerous Test Case For Romney's General Election Prospects

Brian Beutler | February 2, 2012, 5:41AM

Mitt Romney

The fight for Florida's fifty delegates was more than just a key test for the four remaining Republican presidential hopefuls. It also took the GOP's three year experiment with far-right politics into a more appropriate laboratory -- a state where the voters didn't reflect the party's base as neatly as they did in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

And though Mitt Romney trampled his opponents and solidified his status as the nominee-in-waiting, Florida was also a wake-up call. To win so resoundingly, Romney had to inch away from conservative movement dogma for the first time since he began his candidacy.

It wasn't easy.

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