<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"FacebookPinterestGetty Images\n\nCAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.\u2014\"Let's gather the data to see what information we have. And then you create hypotheses to see what different choices might be. And then you choose one, you select that as your mission, and you expect a leader to deliver and get it done!\" declares Mitt Romney. This is not exactly a stemwinder. He's standing on a little diamond shaped stage in front of a Spacehab module. He's explaining the scientific method with all the excitement a 5th grade teacher.\n\nAnd yet: in the back of the room, three girls not much older than 10, with braces and sequined magenta knit caps, are leading piercing chants of \"Mitt! Mitt! Mitt!\" The crowd is\u2014seriously\u2014eating up this up, chanting and cheering along. The mostly older, well-to-do rally goers here talk of the thousands of jobs lost here when the Obama administration ended the space shuttle program. But they aren't looking for a pander.\n\n\"Look at when he started talking about the space coast,\" says Donna Kolk, a Romney supporter originally from Williamsville, New York, who has a vacation home here with her husband. \"He said, 'I'm not going to just tell you what you want to hear.' He didn't say 'Oh, everybody's going to get a job next year.' \" He didn't promise, say, to build a permanent lunar base by the end of his second term, as Newt did just a few days ago, to much ridicule and little support.\n\n\"Newt is a smart man but he shoots from the hip. This man is steady, constant,\" says Fran Galey, an older blonde woman who raves to me about Mitt's performance at Thursday debate. \"I loved when he asked Newt, 'Have you seen your portfolio?' That was the best part! Because you know we all have like, our IRAs, and I don't know every single thing in there\u2014well, maybe I should'\" She pauses. \"They send you those files that you should probably read.\"\n\nThis was a classic Romney crowd\u2014mostly older, a chinos-wearing set, representative of the small but intense 25-30 percent of Republican primary voters who actually seem excited by the most unexciting aspects of his campaign: the hyper-professionalism, the careful attention to detail, the promises not to over promise. To them, the qualities that pundits keep dinging Romney for\u2014his stiffness and his overcaution\u2014are his best assets. He's the safe, boring alternative to the scary, volatile Obama years.\n\n\"We hate Obama. I don't know if you want to print that or not,\" Kolk says. \"Everything's the opposite of the way it used to be. I feel very un-American with Obama and I think Mitt Romney can think on his feet. He's not all flash.\"\n\nFollow Marin on Twitter for more updates from the Florida campaign trail."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/better-off-dull-the-mitt-romney-story>