Florida heats up

As noted here yesterday, John McCain is expected to discuss his support for additional NASA funding during a speech late today in Melbourne, Florida. The Orlando Sentinel reports that the McCain campaign is trying to get “space industry officials” to attend the rally, hoping that their attendance will be perceived as an endorsement of the candidate and his space policy.

The Democrats, though, are offering some counterprogramming to McCain’s speech. A press conference featuring Sen. Bill Nelson is planned for some time today, according to the Sentinel. In addition, the Obama campaign Thursday released a radio ad for Florida audiences criticizing McCain on space, with Nelson claiming that McCain “wants to freeze NASA spending at last year’s level.” (The ad is available online.)

Obama supporters who are interested in space have also organized themselves as “Obamanauts”, complete with a modified version of the Obama campaign logo that has more of a space theme. They are hosting “open space policy discussions” on the Space Coast and have also posted a three-page Obama-McCain space policy comparison that puts the statements of the two campaigns on various space topics, from NASA funding and the Shuttle-Constellation gap to ITAR and commercial space.

While all this attention may make it look like the Space Coast is the key to winning the state, some perspective is in order. The Obama campaign, for example, is pouring major resources into the Miami area to drive up voter turnout; the Los Angeles Times article also adds that McCain will make two campaign appearances in Florida today, but only specifically mentions the one in Miami, not the one in Melbourne. Another article today in the St. Petersburg Times calls the Tamp Bay area Florida’s “most critical battleground” and a “swing-voter mecca”, where both campaigns focusing major resources.