The race to fill the US Senate seat previously held by Mel Martinez of Florida has provided some of the best political theater available in this election cycle.
For those of you who may have been living under a rock for the past year, Senator Mel Martinez retired early creating an open Senate seat on offer in the Sunshine State. Popular Governor Charlie Crist announced that he was a candidate for the seat. The Republican hierarchy in the State rushed to endorse the Governor and the NRSC (National Republican Senatorial Committee) jumped on the Crist bandwagon before the echo of the Crist announcement had gone. But there was a problem. There was already a Republican Candidate in the race – former Speaker of the Florida House, Marco Rubio of Miami. And Florida picks it’s candidate for the Senate race in an August primary election. Many County Chairmen and members of the public (including me) were outraged at what we viewed as the inappropriate endorsement of a candidate for Senate when there were other viable candidates in the race and the attempt of the party structure to by-pass the public selection process in the rules.
Marco Rubio started with negligible state wide name recognition and poor polling against the Governor. But in the last year with hard work, a limited budget and true grass roots organizing Rubio established more than a 20 point lead in the polls over Crist. Marco has an electrifying campaign style. He is attractive, young, articulate and conservative. He tells a great family story of his beginnings as the son of Cuban immigrants who became educated and achieved the highest legislative office in the state as Speaker of the Florida House. His record and his views resonated with the Conservative Florida voters who already had buyer’s remorse over the election of President Obama. Marco played a tough campaign game against Crist and his RINO (Republican in Name Only) policies and public support for Obama policies.
This month, Crist committed political suicide, in my view, by dropping out of the heated primary fight and announcing that he was leaving the Republican party to run for the Senate seat as an independent – assuring himself a place in the November general election without having to face Rubio in the August primary. In effect, Crist is admitting that all of the accusations of flip-flops on issues and self-serving policies are true. Crist’s ultimate flip-flop, dumping the Republican party while sitting as the elected Republican Governor with no more purpose than to save his political hide from an embarrassing loss in the primary election shows the Tan Man to be the worst kind of politician – who abandons his party to try to be a spoiler in the Senate race with the possible effect of electing a Democrat to the Senate from Florida (Kendrick Meek, Democrat Congressman from Miami is the front-runner for the Democrat nomination) while Crist and Rubio divide conservative and moderate votes that oppose Meek.
Crist’s first step as an independent candidate was to refuse to return campaign contributions he received as a Republican candidate. He didn’t have much choice, but the move does not play well. With the close of the legislative session at the end of April, Crist becomes a lame duck as Governor and has little ability to raise more money with no more clout as Governor.
The race is not over. Crist had collected more than seven million dollars for his campaign. Can Rubio withstand an advertising war with a bitter candidate who no longer has anything to lose? But Marco Rubio has become something of a rock star with conservatives nationally. He receives national coverage and has access to unlimited fundraising now. The next few months should be interesting. I do not believe Crist will be rewarded for his duplicity – but this is politics after all.
You-Tube video clip from the Rubio camp on the subject of contributions from Republicans.
My source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmYqWwS10Oo
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