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McCain Plans To Ramp Up Florida Campaign

Posted May 17, 2007 by William March

Updated May 17, 2007 at 02:52 PM

Arizona Sen. John McCain will intensify his campaign in Florida now that it’s more definite that the state will move its primary to Jan. 29, his campaign manager, Terry Nelson, said in an interview Thursday.

Nelson was in town for finance meetings, he said. The campaign just announced two Hillsborough County co-chaiirmen, County Commissioner Mark Sharpe and Sheriff David Gee.

“We’ve put in place rudimentary beginnings of an organization, and have some people here working on it day to day. We’re going to grow that going forward and have a real campaign here,” Nelson said.

Asked what political observers and activists might expect in the near future, he said, “You should look for further announcements” about Florida supporters. “We’ll continue to put our leadership team around the state, we’ll make an announcement about our statewide leadership, we’ll begin putting staff in the state to begin organizing at the grassroots level.”

Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, the two other declared candidates at the top of the GOP primary pack, both have announced statewide chairmen or co-chairmen, and Romney has developed an extensive campaign organization in Florida.

But Nelson denied that the McCain campaign was in any way “surprised” by the speed with which Romney, the most organized in Florida, formed a campaign team here. It was just a difference in strategy, he said—“If you become an early state we’re going to set up an operation and campaign aggressively, but we’re not going to spend a bunch of money if we don’t have to.”

In polls, McCain is doing better in some other early primary states than in Florida, where a recent Strategic Vision poll showed him with 20 percent, substantially behind Giuliani with 32 percent, but leading Romney at 5 percent.