No love for Romney at Tea Party convention

"Hundreds of conservative activists at the Florida Tea Party Convention in Daytona Beach show no enthusiasm for Mitt Romney, the man widely expected to win the GOP presidential nomination." From The St. Petersburg Times here.

DAYTONA BEACH — At the Florida Tea Party Convention on Saturday, you could find buttons calling for Marco Rubio to be on the presidential ticket, T-shirts declaring that Barack Obama has made communism cool again, and freeze-dried foods to last up to 25 years in case society collapses.

Scarce among the hundreds of conservative activists gathered in Daytona Beach? Any enthusiasm for Mitt Romney, the man widely expected to win the Republican presidential nomination.

"The party establishment has wanted Romney all along, and they've been pushing him on us," lamented James Koll of Fort Dodge, Iowa, who said he would support a third-party candidate or write in a candidate before voting for Romney.

His brother, retiree Don Koll of the Villages in Central Florida, nodded. "Some of these Republicans think they have our votes in the bag no matter what, but they don't," he said, complaining that no top-tier Republican candidates came to the tea party convention. "They're turning their back on us, and they will pay a price." . . .

The weekend convention was billed as the biggest tea party gathering ever organized in Florida, but it wound up provoking plenty of disappointment, frustration and anger from activists attending it. Organizers had billed an event featuring a presidential debate, a Florida U.S. Senate debate, and speeches by luminaries including Scott and Rubio.

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum is expected today, and Rubio sent a videotape, but the weekend was devoid of A-list speakers.

None of the major U.S. Senate candidates — Adam Hasner, George LeMeiux or Connie Mack IV — showed up, and neither did any other statewide elected official in Florida.

Several prominent invitees insisted that they in no way meant to snub the group or distance themselves, but that they had never committed to the event as the organizers suggested.

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