Romney stops in Fla. during home stretch of campaign

PENSACOLA, Fla. (WALA) - A crowd of about 10,000 people packed the Pensacola Bay Center Saturday morning to hear Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney talk about a subject near and dear to the Gulf Coast area: the Navy.

U.S Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, and Congressman Connie Mack, who's running for the state's other U.S. Senate seat, against incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson joined Romney at the Oct. 27 rally.

Romney walked through the crowd to get to the stage and set a confident tone just 11 days before the Nov. 6 general election.

Photos: Mitt Romney stops in Pensacola

He said, "Well, we are going to win this, you know that. We're going to win, yeah."

One of his themes was the need to make big choices. He said President Barack Obama was shrinking from the magnitude of the times. Governor Romney cited the military as an example.

He said, "You may recall, at our most recent debate, I made the point that our Navy is now smaller than at any time than, well, in almost a hundred years. And, the president's response was, well, we don't use bayonets and horses any more. In fact, we do use bayonets."

Governor Romney said instead of making cuts, he would increase the number of ships in the Navy.

The Republican Nominee said, "His (President Obama's) vision is to cut military spending by a trillion dollars. By the way, a trillion dollars worth of cuts would cost about 41,000 jobs here in Florida. And, think of all the businesses that are dependent on those jobs."

That got veteran Michael Cook's attention.

Cook said, "What he said about the military, about how he's going to the military, really affected me, and, I think, the majority of people in Northwest Florida."

After the speech, a lot of people stayed around taking pictures, and also talking about what they heard that impressed them.

Kathy Wilkins-Jones of Mobile said, "We're going to look at the teachers, we're going to look at the students, forget the teachers union, and, let me tell you, I'm a teacher, so, for me, that is huge, because I see that as the difference between success and failure in my school system."

Belinda Wiles of Mobile said, "My husband is a family physician in Mobile, we don't know one physician, although the AMA (the American Medical Association) supports Obamacare, I don't personally know one physician who supports it."

And, we met one person who's letting everyone knows who he supports.

Stephen Johnson, a Florida State Student, had a tattoo on his shoulder that said "Romney."

Johnson said, "I got it in June, in June right after he wrapped up the nomination."