Screen capture courtesy of CNN

That was fast.

Popular terms flying about during the network coverage of Florida on primary night were unitarily pugilistic. "Good old fashion beat down," cried one. "Boot's on his neck," piped up another. "A shellacking," to paraphrase Obama after the 2010 midterms.

These terms, oft used to describe one-sided political victories, conjure images of after-school brawls with raw knuckles and split lips, torn collars and chastened losers.

Yet, Mr. Romney in his millions of dollars spent, thousands of adverts aired, and onslaught of negative attacks deployed, took part in no small form of fisticuffs. 

No, his victory was an outright diluvial reckoning; he drowned the mere prospect of competition in the torrents of money and negativity.

Santorum conceded the state several days ago when he left to tend to his daughter who was in the hospital (pneumonia. She's doing better) and decided to focus his efforts on the coming states.

Paul didn't spend a dime in Florida, preferring to try his hand on the coming caucus races, where his fervent fan base has the greatest impact.

It was Newt that bore the brunt of the Florida machine Romney had kept in place since his '08 flameout. The former speaker's strong victory last week in South Carolina was turned on its head fast; everything that made him such a force there, suddenly became a liability.

His bonafides from leading the House? Name someone from that era who can stand him.

His attacks on Romney's wealth? Damaging assaults on capitalism that will destroy the GOP in the general election.

Those big speeches he gave in the South Carolina debate? A grandiose flibbertigibbet whose ideas will be the end of us all.

When the Romney line of 47 percent came in Tuesday night, the Florida GOP had spoken to Gingrich loud and clear (and in their best Hepburn):

"Just go to the moon, you selfish dreamer!"

Florida has always been a ground game state, and in a first for the GOP primary season, one with a diverse GOP base that actually resembles the electorate. The message that Romney hammered home as he crossed the state was one of electability, namely Gingrich's lack of it.

Exit polls showed Romney carried 58 percent of the voters who valued beating Obama as the most important criteria in their decisions.

Ever the mindful pedant, Romney spent all of his victory speech attacking the president. It was nothing that hadn't been said on the campaign trail before, but his tone and intimations were clear that as long as he keeps racking up solid victories, the also-rans will remain in his rear-view mirror (no doubt a foreign luxury model).

In his concession, Newt painted Romney as the "Massachusetts Moderate" and the only viable  conservative in the self-declared two-man race. He flirted with the truculence he showed after losing Iowa, but quickly pivoted to an alternate universe wherein he laid out the hypothetical executive orders he'd sign between his inauguration and the evening balls. 

"Delusional" was the term Chris Matthews used to describe the speech, though he correctly applauded its brilliant and twisted stream of consciousness that played right to his fans.

In the face of the Romney machine, Newt quoted a line from Lincoln's Gettysburg address, that America was a nation "of the people, by the people, for the people" which is supposed to be a grassroots counter to the Romney inevitability.

Lincoln was doubtfully thinking of corporations and Super PACs when he remaked on those people, but such is our post-Citizens United nation.

Gingrich's team brandished signs saying "46 To Go," implying that he wasn't about to give up anytime soon and that he'd follow through on his pledge to campaign all the way to the convention. 

That's not the message the GOP base, loathe to consider Gingrich and eager to prepare for the general election soon, wants to hear. But there's only one man who can fully stop Newt Gingrich and he's busy quoting lines from the Civil War.

While he fights long into the good night, Romney and his camp can bask slightly in the glow of a second landslide victory.

Troubling though, that the man who can win overwhelmingly has also left the GOP and general voters so underwhelmed.

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