TAMPA — Conservative Marco Rubio enjoyed a good September in his
race against popular, liberal Florida Governor Charlie Crist for
the 2010 Republican nomination for the Florida U.S. Senate
recently vacated by Mel Martinez.
Though he’s trailed Crist by double figures in polls of Florida
Republicans, when it comes to the people active in the Florida
Party, Rubio, a former speaker of the Florida House, has wowed
them with speeches full of values such as fiscal restraint,
social conservatism, strength abroad, and opposition to massive
government intrusions into the economy such as cap and trade,
which Crist fancies. In straw votes among eight county Republican
executive committees, Rubio has swamped Crist 358 to 32. In
Hernando County, just one county away from Crist’s home county of
Pinellas, Rubio pitched a 46-0 shutout.
In other Republican groups Rubio has also done well. He charmed
the ladies of the Northwest Orange County (Orlando) Republican
Women Federated 49-3, and those of the Republican Women’s Club of
Duval County (Jacksonville) 65-4.
The Volusia County (Daytona Beach) executive committee passed a
resolution condemning Crist for supporting Obama’s stimulus
piñata. A similar censure resolution lost in Palm Beach County on
a tie vote.
So the folks who do the day-to-day work of the party, and who
follow political developments most closely, like Rubio and have
little use for the shallow and opportunistic Crist. In these
circles Crist is sometimes referred to as “Wind-sock Charlie” for
a history of predicating his political actions on the last focus
group report he read. The same polls that show Crist ahead among
all Republicans, show that among those familiar with both Crist
and Rubio the race is dead even.
Rubio has been getting some help from the national conservative
press, where he’s seen as the great right hope in this race. John
J. Miller did a profile
of Rubio in National Review, calling him a rising
star in the Florida GOP with an unambiguously conservative voting
record. Rubio’s gotten positive mentions in Human
Events, as well as in the
Weekly
Standard blog. Regular TAS
readers know of Rubio
and how he stacks
up against the pretend conservative Crist. Many Florida
newspapers last weekend carried a column
by George Will in which Will not only whooped up Rubio’s
conservative virtues, and chastised national Republicans for
supporting Crist, but flatly predicted a Rubio victory in the
primary next August.
One group Rubio continues to do poorly with is D.C. insiders. At
a Sarasota event last week, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush
praised Rubio’s biography and platforms and criticized the
National Republican Senatorial Committee, headed by Texas Senator
John Cornyn, for endorsing Crist just hours after Crist announced
his candidacy last spring. Rubio had already announced his
candidacy.
“I think he (Rubio) should be given a chance,” Bush said. “I
think the idea that the national party should pick a winner a
year and a half before an election is the wrong way to go.”
But the NRSC is unrepentant. I asked NRSC communications director
Brian Walsh if he and Cornyn were familiar with Bush’s invitation
for them to butt out of the Florida race. He allowed as how they
were, but they’ve declined Jeb’s request that they take a hike.
“We did see that statement,” Walsh told me. “The former governor
has certainly more than earned the right to share his thoughts.
But the NRSC believes Governor Crist is the best candidate to
maintain the checks and balances needed in the Senate.”
It’s truly hard to see how a politician like Crist, who has
supported Obama’s stimulus package, who’s enthusiastic about cap
and trade and other costly enviro-disasters, and who’s as silent
as the tomb about conservative social issues, could in any way be
a check on the Obama socialist agenda. He’s more of an enabler.
This is probably why a friend of Rubio’s told me he had come up
with a great slogan for Crist’s campaign: “Send Charlie to
Washington — he’ll fit right in.”
The claimed issue, Cornyn has said and Walsh reiterated in our
conversation, is electability.
”Charlie Crist is the candidate
with the best chance to win,” Cornyn recently told the New
York Times. “This is not to disparage Marco Rubio. He
has a bright future.”
Pretty patronizing thing to say about a guy who has a strong
conservative record in the Florida Legislature, and has, in stark
contrast to Crist, walked the walk of what the Cornyns of the
world say are Republican principles.
The notion that Crist has a big electoral edge over Rubio is
right peculiar. The most likely Democratic candidate for the
Senate seat is Miami Congressman Kendrick Meek, a young, very
liberal but not very articulate Obama wannabe, who has little
support outside of South Florida and would stand little chance in
center-right Florida against either Crist or Rubio.
“Winning Senate seats is our priority,” Walsh told me. “We want
to keep the Florida seat in the Republican column. The voters in
Florida will be the ones who make the final decision there.”
Walsh brushes aside concerns about Crist’s walks on the liberal
side and conservative concerns that he would be a very unreliable
vote in the Senate on matters that concern conservatives. He
continued his “deal with the devil” argument.
“We don’t have a litmus test,” Walsh said. “We want as many
people with R’s behind their name in the Senate as we can get. If
you’re concerned about cap and trade, we need to be sure that
Mitch McConnell is the Senate leader. Nothing is voted on that
the Senate leader doesn’t allow on the floor.”
True enough. But it was clearly unnecessary for the NRSC to put
its thumb on the scale in Florida in favor of Crist, a man the
conservative base of the Republican Party prays is not the future
of the party. Cornyn and others in the national Republican
establishment have created real enmity in the conservative base
of the Florida party (and elsewhere where they’ve supported
liberal candidates over conservatives). If only the conservative
base could vote, neither Cornyn nor Crist could be elected
assistant county rat-catcher anywhere in Florida. To them it is
just one more example of the Republican Party sticking its thumb
in the eyes of conservatives. Mention either Crist or Cornyn to
these folks and I hear verbs and adjectives (and the odd gerund)
I’ve rarely encountered since I was a Sixth Fleet sailor.
The race between Crist and Rubio has been described as a battle
for the soul of the Republican Party in Florida. Rarely do
primaries present so clear a choice between two candidates with
different views on the proper role of government and how a good
and just society can be achieved. But if the Machiavellian
approach of the NRSC is to prevail (I don’t believe it will),
perhaps it should be described as a battle to determine if the
Republican Party has a soul.
And if it’s true there is no standard for support from the
Republican establishment beyond having an R behind the name and
good electoral prospects according to the political cognoscenti,
then I have a bumper strip I recommend the NRSC send out with its
fundraising letters. It reads: “Our liberals can beat your
liberals.”
How many do you want, Brian?
