TAMPA — Conservatives can be excused for enjoying it a little
too much as Arlen Specter learns, to his deep regret, that
Democrats will almost certainly treat him worse than Republicans
have.
If Republicans wish to be a party with a purpose, one that
seriously opposes the leftward rush of our rookie president and
his merry band, Mitch McConnell will not be quick to say, “Come
on back, all is forgiven.”
Now there’s at least a chance that Florida will not be replacing
Arlen with another Senate RINO after the 2010 election. Last
Wednesday, Marco Rubio, a 37-year-old, Cuban-American lawyer from
Miami and a former speaker of the Florida House, declared he will
be running for the U.S. Senate seat that Republican Mel Martinez
will relinquish when his term ends next year.
Rubio will almost certainly face the current Florida governor,
Charlie Crist, in the Republican primary. (Crist is expected to
announce for the Senate this week. If he doesn’t, lots of Florida
Republican consultants and other politically savvy prognosticator
types will be wiping major egg from their faces. No one in the
political biz in Florida thinks Charlie will run for re-election
as governor.)
Crist, who has held one office or another in Florida politics
since 1992 and who won the governorship in 2006, is more often
referred to as a moderate or a populist than as a conservative.
His favorable ratings in polls remain in the sixties and
seventies, even though he’s promised much and delivered little on
two issues — property tax relief and high property insurance
rates — that Floridians anguish over. Lots of Democrats and
independents like him because he sounds a lot like them.
Crist is popular among rank and file Republicans, but he’s
cheesed off the conservative wing of the Republican Party by
taking extreme environmental positions, including supporting a
carbon cap and trade system and attempting to get the Florida
Legislature to force Florida utilities to use an unrealistically
high percentage of “renewable fuels” to generate electricity. He
also spent a good deal of time whooping up President Obama’s
“stimulus” package (actually appearing on the same stage with
Obama in Ft. Myers in February to coo about it) and recently
appointed a liberal jurist to the Florida Supreme Court.
Crist further annoys conservatives by spending more time
prattling on in a vacuous, Kumbaya way about the healing
properties of “bipartisanship” and “diversity” (as though Florida
weren’t diverse) than in speaking about or supporting
conservative principles. He’s not had a positive thing to say
about social conservatives or their causes. He’s pro-abortion and
cool with same-sex civil unions. He supported John McCain’s “We
Don’t Need No Stinking Borders Act of 2007.” He’s said he wants
to restore voting rights to felons after they’ve completed their
sentences. He’s filled the state’s top regularity agency posts
with people environmentalists find simpatico. He’s whooped up
tougher, California-like emissions standards for Florida
automobiles that would be costly to implement but would provide
questionable environmental benefits.
Crist is infatuated with big, expensive commuter rail systems.
And has declared he’s in favor of new major-league ball yards on
the public dime (such a one as the Tampa Bay Rays ownership
wants).
Considering the above, RINO is the nicest thing conservatives
call Crist in private conversation. The words “empty suit” come
up a lot. So do some other words, over which we need not linger.
RUBIO IS FRESH FROM EIGHT YEARS in the Florida House of
Representatives, the last two as speaker, where he compiled a
conservative voting record. He’s smart, energetic, ambitious, and
to all appearances sincere in his conservatism. He’s an
enthusiastic if not always eloquent speaker. When he speaks it’s
usually on conservative themes such as limited government, the
superiority of the private sector over the public (the
entrepreneur over the bureaucrat), the centrality of the family
(he’s married with four children), judges who interpret rather
than make law, and a vigorous foreign policy.
Rubio rarely mentions Crist by name in his comments, but any
Floridian who doesn’t know who Rubio is referring to is just back
from an extended vacation on Mars. A few samples from my
conversation with Rubio last week:
“Elections are about choice, and I’m going to present a clear
alternative,” Rubio said. “The first job is to nominate a
Republican. And we have a choice about what we want a Republican
to be.”
Rubio went on to lament Republicans who “just want to survive.
Their message seems to be if you can’t beat them, join them. If
we go in this direction Republicans become just another branch of
the Democrats.” Then he excoriated Republicans who “think we
should be grateful for Obama’s stimulus package.”
Rubio has criticized Crist’s big-government energy policies in
the past, and did so again in our conversation. Rubio said that
while he is not prepared to challenge the claims of the global
warmers, he says even if they are right there is no need to
destroy the economy, as a cap and trade system would, in order to
protect us.
“American innovators will solve the energy crisis for us,” Rubio
said. “We don’t need big government mandates.”
If the race
indeed shapes up to be Crist vs. Rubio, Republican voters will
certainly be faced with, to coin a cliché, a choice not an echo.
One of the savviest people on the subject of Florida politics is
University of South Florida professor Susan McManus. She told me
a Crist/Rubio race would be “a battle for the ideological heart
and soul of the Florida Republican Party.”
Rubio will certainly have an uphill battle in taking on Crist. If
the election were held this week he would lose big. But the race
isn’t this week. It’s 15 months from now. Plenty of time for both
Rubio and Florida Democrats to knock some bloom off the Crist
rose.
“There’s no reason for Crist’s popularity to stay high,” McManus
said. “The Democrats will be painting a more partisan face on
him.”
The 2010 Florida Senate race will be instructive in more ways
than just deciding what Republican means in Florida. We’ll also
see if those tens of thousands of new Democrats the Obama
campaign managed to register really plan to make Florida a blue
state or were just infatuated with Obama.
While Florida was going for Obama in 2008, Democrats picked up
only one seat in Florida’s 160-seat legislature. And Floridians
voted the conservative line on a plateful of constitutional
amendments. But between 2004 and 2008, Florida Democrats picked
up a net gain of more than 288,000 voters and lead Republicans in
registration 4.7 million to 4.2 million. Party registration
numbers in Florida are always tricky due to the left-over
conservative Democrats who are registered with a D but haven’t
voted for a Democrat since JFK. There are, of course, fewer and
fewer of these as the years go by.
McManus said South Florida, three-term Congressman Kendrick Meek,
now the likely front-runner on the Democratic side, “can be
counted on to try to replicate the Obama model.” It’s far too
soon to predict if change will still charm two years after our
rookie president was sworn in, if Obama’s Florida organization
can be brought back to life, or if Meek is as slick and glib as
Obama.
Rubio is just shy of 38 years old. He can sometimes come across
as a brash graduate student. If the Florida Republican bench were
deeper he might still be refining his game in AA ball. But the
Republican bench isn’t deep. So if Florida conservatives want a
voice in the U.S. Senate any time soon, young Rubio has about a
year to learn to hit big league pitching.
This one should be worth watching. And considering the current
Republican/Democrat lineup in the U.S. Senate, the race will
enjoy a national audience. Perhaps even serious national
contributors. Stay tuned.
