one i would point to is orange county. that s orlando. this is a county the president won easily by 18 points. in 2004 in that same county this is a dead even split between senator kerry and president bush. the other area, the i4 corridor. watch tampa, too. in 2004, president bush won by points in but from 2008 that s a county that went blue. hillsboro, the president a win every or john mccain. 29 electoral votes on the line in the sunshine state. martha: a judge in pennsylvania has issued ordinary force reinstate republican elections officials in philadelphia. there are reports this morning that some of them reported being thrown out of polling sites and
things are very orderly here. but here in florida in the early voting where 4.5 million people turned out the lines were five and six hours long. that led to that in person absentee voting. but that s what they were doing here. in the meantime now lines have shortened. lines in orlando have been 2 hours long. just a lot of people out to vote. at the same time these folks are getting hammered with ads. i flew in last night and turned in david letterman. the entire block of commercials was all political ads. local stations have to be making a killing. i asked voters how they feel about all this attention they are getting. here is what one voter said. you feel like you are the center of the universe. everybody is focused on the middle of the state on the i4
as real clear politics has it. florida is trending in mitt romney s direction. it was unusual and a unique undertaking for my newspaper, we polled voters in the bell weather section of florida, the i4 corridor, which runs from tampa bay across the state to daytona beach. mitt romney 51%, president obama 45%. the president s people have said in none of their polling shows him lower than 47% in the state of florida. our poll had romney up by six points in the i4 corridor. jon: and that s really the prize in florida, isn t it? that is what both candidates are struggling to win. it is. it s where the candidates spend most of their time. bill clinton has campaigned for president obama in orlando. it s where tampa is located. swing voters, independents, working moms, growing hispanic vote, i4 is where the villages is located the megaretirement community that is a must-stop
growing hispanic population. you ve got to give a big edge to president obama there. romney does better with male voter, white men particularly. it s no coincidence that ann romney and former president bill clinton are both in the center of the state today because that is the real battleground in florida generally is the i4 corridor between orlando and tampa. jon: it s me, clinton made i guess gave a speech at florida international university, and a number of the students who were there barely remember his presidency. that is interesting . he s in orlando today. he is still a major calling card for super voters, democrats who get out in vote, particularly the elderly, and with college students. the thing about florida, jon, is it s a true microcosm of the entire country. there is a little bit of
everything. there is a lot of everything, college students, hispanic. there is a huge military and retired military population in florida too. jon: okay you mentioned retired population you didn t really mention the seniors specifically, medicare is a huge issue, paul ryan brought on board in part because of his expertise on medicare, is it helping or hurting the romney campaign? because you know the president s campaign has made a big deal out of paul ryan and his budget, and essential tee are sayin andee sepbgs essentially saying this is the guy who is going to wreck medicare for you seniors. i don t think the romney-ryan campaign has made the sale on the changes to medicare. people at the top feel a tremendous amount of economic insecurity. they may be less receptive to talk about remaking medicare. paul ryan was very well received at the villages in central florida, again i-4 corridor. it is a little bit young err and