Net Results

It appears turnout for the Florida Republican primary will end up edging turnout for the Democratic contest -- but not by enough to quell the ongoing perception that Democratic voters are more enthusiastic about their candidate field than Republicans are about theirs.

With more than 90 percent of precincts reporting across the state, according to the Associated Press, there were 1,777,000 votes recorded in the Republican primary to 1,620,000 in the Democratic primary.

Yet the Republican electorate was subjected to full-bore campaigns by primary winner John McCain and runner-up Mitt Romney, both fighting for momentum and the mantle of "front-runner" heading into the crucial primary pile-up on Super Tuesday next week; Rudy Giuliani, who set up camp virtually full time in an unsuccessful effort to use Florida to turn the tide in his favor; and Mike Huckabee, who bid to build a Southern base in the primary. The candidates combined to spend millions of dollars on campaign ads and get-out-the-vote efforts in the state.

Democrats, on the other hand, turned out in relatively equivalent numbers, even though none of their candidates played any active role or spent any campaign money in encouraging them to do so.

That is because of the drastically different manner in which the national Republican and Democratic organizations pursued their disputes with their Florida affiliates over the state's decision to hold its primary on Jan. 29, prior to the Feb. 5 starting date that both national parties had set for most states.

The Democratic National Committee went draconian on the Florida Democrats, taking away away 210 of their national convention delegates and prevailing upon all its major candidates -- including primary winner Hillary Clinton, runner-up Barack Obama and third-place finisher John Edwards -- not to campaign in the state. The Republican National Committee also punished its Florida affiliate, but not nearly as harshly, taking away half of the alloted 114 delegates and allowing GOP candidates to campaign at will in the state.