| Orlando Sentinel poll: Romney, McCain too close to call; Clinton way ...
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has surged to a narrow lead among Florida Republicans, while Sen. Hillary Clinton is the runaway favorite of Democrats going into next week's presidential primary, an Orlando Sentinel poll shows.
Romney is the choice of 30 percent of likely GOP voters -- with a similarly surging Arizona Sen. John McCain close behind at 26 percent -- in the nation's first big-state primary, according to the survey released Thursday. The lead is within the poll's margin of error of 5 percentage points, setting up the possibility of a close contest Tuesday night.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who led in Florida for months and dubbed the state his "firewall," has plunged to third, with 18 percent support. His slide, if borne out Tuesday, could end his campaign.
The Most Foolish
The vast bulk of these proceeds went to paying down debt. Live below our means. Resolving to be an LBYMer had a heavy influence on our decision to leave the San Francisco Bay area for the Rockies. Doing so offered huge savings. Although it wasn't part of our four-point plan, avoiding temptation certainly has a place on the list. The biggest temptation in '98 was stocks, for we were still living in Silicon Valley and our neighbors were getting rich investing in tech. Fortunately, I read -- and re-read -- the reprimand in The Motley Fool Investment Guide to stay away from stocks until we were debt-free. That, and some encouragement from fellow Fools, allowed us to stay the course. Three years later, in January 2001, we emerged, debt-free and living in a new house. You can do it, too If you're in debt now and you're reading this, make me a promise.
Getting to know your customers
When I was a little kid, about once a week my dad would take me to the local corner store in my very small home town. This was in the days when convenience stores in Quebec were still called convenience stores, before they morphed into dpaneurs. Anyway, I'm already off track, and dating myself. One summer, what my dad would buy me never varied a stubby glass bottle of Hires root beer and a box of Smarties. And my routine never varied. I would sit in the kitchen and empty all the Smarties on the table. Then, I would methodically separate the pieces of chocolaty gold by colour, and arrange them in sequential rows. If there were more of a particular colour, I would consume those additional Smarties until I had perfectly matching rows of colour. The point here is not that I was obsessive-compulsive starting at a young age, it is that even back then I was a segmenter.
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