WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Mitt Romney’s ties to the Northeast gave him a boost on the way to winning the New Hampshire primary. Newt Gingrich’s roots in the South probably had at least a little to do with his South Carolina triumph.
Neither presidential candidate is expected to benefit from such geographic ties in next week’s Republican primary in Florida, a diverse state suffering through a world of economic hurt.
“Geography will not play any role in my decision,” said Rich Cole, sounding like many voters across the state.
Cole, 68, lives in Florida’s largest retirement community, The Villages, and hails from Pennsylvania, which candidate Rick Santorum represented in the Senate. Cole said he likes Santorum but plans to back Romney, for whom he voted four years ago. He thinks Romney gives Republicans the best chance of beating President Barack Obama in November.
A self-described “God-fearing conservative,” Larry Dos Santos, of Venice, was leaning toward backing Gingrich. Dos Santos, a 65-year-old retiree from New York who lived nearly all his life on Long Island, noted that the former House speaker has some qualities that remind him of home.
“Telling it like it is is definitely like a New Yorker,” he said of the former
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