First Lady lauds Michigan, what about Florida?

While the Florida delegation got to listen to pollster Frank Luntz talk about feeling like shooting himself during Barack Obama's appearance at a recent candidates' forum at a megachurch, fellow renegade state Michigan got a pep talk from First Lady Laura Bush.

"I just wanted to make a brief stop-by and tell you all how important Michigan is to the McCain campaign," Bush said at Michigan's breakfast briefing according to a White House transcript. "I want you to realize that. I want you to feel the pressure of it and go back home and work really hard, because Michigan can be the Ohio of this time -- you know, Michigan can be a state that carries the ticket for us and carries the election for us."

Luntz told the Florida delegation that he wouldn't have predicted 2 months ago that McCain could win the presidency; now he says the Republican has a "reasonable chance to win."

Luntz said recent polling he's done suggests McCain is pulling Jewish voters in Florida at a rate higher than President Bush who won 24 percent of the vote in 2004. "John McCain is already... over 30 percent of the Jewish vote and it could go as high as 40 percent and in Florida that really does matter."