Local

Romney campaigns in Orlando; Gingrich in Cocoa

CENTRAL FLORIDA,None — The men running neck-and-neck for the Republican presidential nomination visited Central Florida on Wednesday.

GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney was in Orlando Wednesday morning at the American Douglas Metals to deliver his rebuttal to President Obama's State of the Union address. Romney was at the steel-manufacturing plant on Thorpe Road.

There was no music, no introduction, just Romney without a coat and tie, bashing Obama's State of the Union address.

Romney said the president is detached from reality and Obama says one thing, but does another.

For instance, Romney said Obama is for deregulation, but regulates.

He said Obama is for lower corporate tax rates, but that he's done the opposite.

Obama stated Tuesday night that he's for more domestic oil production, but Romney said Obama has voted against making that a reality.

Romney also said the president's speech excluded plenty of issues, such as America's debt problem.

In order to lasso-in and balance the budget, Romney said, he would cut spending by slashing major programs such as "Obamacare," and cut funding for more mainstream and popular programs like, PBS.

"It's great to have programs like PBS and Big Bird without advertising, but I'm afraid we shouldn't keep sending hundreds of millions of dollars to PBS. Instead, they should get advertisers like everyone else. Big Bird can survive with Kellogg's Corn Flakes on the TV tube," said Romney.

Romney headed to Miami Wednesday afternoon and will be at a debate in Jacksonville on Thursday.

Meanwhile, his Republican rival, Newt Gingrich, has been very successful lately countering Romney's blows by painting the former governor as a super-rich corporate raider who didn't want the nation to see his tax returns, which were released this week.

Gingrich was in Cocoa at the Space Coast for a rally on Wednesday.

He stated that he wants to put a colony on the moon and go to Mars and wants private industry to do it with the government's help.

Gingrich gave more specifics about his plan to privatize the space industry and help the country and Brevard County become leaders in the industry again.

Gingrich proposes giving 10 percent of the NASA budget as prize money to space entrepreneurs for successes.

Gingrich said he wants the public private partnership to launch five rockets a day and to think like an airport.

Brevard County lost 20,000 jobs because of the end of the space shuttle program, so his words were met with enthusiasm.

Gingrich seems to have a new tactic: aligning Romney with Charlie Crist, who abandoned the Republican party as conservative Marco Rubio surged in his Senate race.

"We discovered last night that Governor Romney has picked up Governor Charlie Crist's campaign team. I thought that sort of told you everything you needed to know about this primary," said Gingrich.

Gingrich is now surging as Romney's poll numbers have collapsed in Florida. Gallup has Gingrich up by 4 points, while Rasmussen has him up by 7.