Florida Republicans Are Conservative and Love Their Government Programs

By Professor John A. Tures, LaGrange College
Yahoo! Contributor Network – 15 mins ago...

A survey by the GS Strategy Group for AARP, as reported by the Orlando Sentinel, shows that an overwhelming number of Florida Republicans consider themselves conservative. Yet this same group will fight hard to preserve Social Security and Medicare, preferring both government programs to keeping soldiers stationed abroad.

In that survey of Republican Florida primary voters, 76.4 percent reported being "conservative," as opposed to moderate or liberal (barely two percent). That should be good news for conservative GOP politicians like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, right? Except that when it comes to the issues, Florida GOP voters don't think like the media caricature of the conservative.

When it comes to issues, two-thirds of Florida Republicans consider economic issues to be paramount. Less than 10 percent see moral issues as the most important. Just under five percent are concerned with social issues, less than the number worried about foreign affairs.

More than twice as many Florida GOP primary voters oppose reducing Social Security to pay off the debt as there are deficit hawks in the state. By a similar margin, Florida Republicans oppose Medicare cuts to balance the budget. They differ on solutions for deficit reduction (eliminating loopholes, cutting foreign aid, and reducing foreign war involvement. Gingrich voters and those who backed his conservative allies prefer going after loopholes, while Romney and Santorum supporters think there's enough money in foreign aid that could be cut to balance the books. Ron Paul fans want less foreign involvement abroad.

Speaking of foreign conflicts, Florida GOP voters back withdrawing troops to cuts in Medicare and Social Security by huge margins, (65% to 8.4%, on average).

The candidates seem to be taking these results seriously. According to a Yahoo News story, Newt Gingrich's campaign released an ad tying Mitt Romney's company Bain Capital to a company that paid a huge fine for Medicare fraud, undercutting Romney's claim "that he never did business with the government."

Romney has accused Gingrich of being opposed to Medicare reform, according to a Yahoo News story by John Whitesides and Sam Youngman. But these charges could backfire. Romney criticized Gingrich for opposing Rep Paul Ryan's budget plan. "My plan is not going to be identical to his but we are on the same page," Romney said, according to Whitesides and Youngman. But according to these reporters "Ryan's budget proposal, which would dramatically cut spending and transform the Medicare health plan for the elderly into a private insurance system," may not be as popular with voters in November

Romney may be too strong for lightly funded and poorly organized Republican adversaries. But if these polls are any indication, Florida Republicans will look poorly upon Romney's support of the Ryan Plan. If Obama's reelection team is smart enough, they can exploit this Romney weakness in the general election in the Sunshine State the way the Clinton team demolished Dole for his anti-Social Security and anti-Medicare comments from 1995.

Florida Republicans Are Conservative and Love Their Government Programs - Yahoo! News