St. Pete Times: Rubio is a T.I.N.O.

The St. Petersburg Times is reporting that Marco Rubio might be a little "mavericky" when it comes to his "teabaggery". Apparently, the former state House Speaker's image as a pure teabagger might not be so accurate. Among the unsatisfied are the NRA:

"He was a big disappointment to us when he was the speaker,'' said NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer, who saw Rubio do little to help pass a bill allowing employees to bring guns to work. "He talked the talk, but he didn't walk the walk."

As somebody who actually goes to a workplace everyday, I have to say that I am very thankful that my colleagues aren't carrying weapons. So thanks Marco Rubio? Unfortunately for Marco, his ideological impurity doesn't end there.  Hopefully, the anti-tax, anti-earmark Club for Growth--which recently jumped into the primary battle on Rubio's behalf--doesn't find that Marco doesn't mind pork if he his constituents benefit.

The candidate Rubio rails against big-government spending and assures voters that as a senator he won't slip earmarks into the federal budget. As speaker, however, he didn't mind a state budget with $800,000 tucked away for artificial turf on Miami-Dade fields where he played flag football.

The turf (listed as a juvenile crime prevention initiative) was among $50 million in pork targeted to the speaker's home county and more than $400 million in projects and initiatives that Crist vetoed in 2007.

Charlie's friend are also anxious to point that while candidate Rubio attacks Charlie Crist for supporting cap-and-trade to fight climate change, legislator Rubio voted for a measure urging the governor to pursue cap-and-trade.  They are also frothing at the mouth to point out that candidate Rubio attacks Charlie for expanding the state-run property insurance company when legislator Rubio voted for the legislation that allowed the governor to do so.

So it would seem that while Marco Rubio talks the talk--"Obama is a socialist. Guns, guns, guns. Deficit spending is okay for waging holy wars, but not fixing health care."--his record as an elected official indicates that he a T.I.N.O.--teabagger in name only.  

So the race in Florida is turning into T.I.N.O. against R.I.N.O.  This is going to be fun to watch!

Crist: I Teabag "80%" of the Time!

So last night it was teabagger against moderate at the Alachua County Republican Party's annual fundraiser. Never heard of Alachua County? There's a good reason. It's in the middle of fucking nowhere. But last night, there was a showdown between the Charlie "I was for the stimulus before I was against it" Crist and Marco "I am Rush Limbaugh's bitch" Rubio.

The high-profile Senate race provided an extra helping this year. Rubio gave the event's invocation, but first made comments along his campaign theme of being the race's true conservative.

"It's very simple: We already have a Democratic Party in America," he said. "We do not need two Democratic parties in America."

Crist gave a speech running through a long list of positions to prove his conservative bona fides, from support of gun rights to tax cuts. But he received a less enthusiastic greeting than Rubio from the grassroots activists in attendance, even getting a small smattering of boos.

In comments to reporters before the event, Crist said party members should put aside differences. He invoked Reagan's old saying that a "person that agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend."

But Charlie has forgotten that even if you are with the GOP 80% of the time, if your nose is up Obama's ass the other 20% of the time, you are undermining the "Obama is Muslim and health care is a secret plot to kill old people" teabagger movement. Just as a white man was tainted by a single drop of black blood in pre-Civil Right's Era America, so is a Republican who strays from the anti-tax, anti-Obama, Talibevangelical right for even a moment.

Club for Growth Goes After Charlie

The Club for Growth has been considering jumping into the Florida Republican Senate primary race for the last few weeks. They've spoken very highly of the Marco Rubio since he announced his bad back in May.

“His fiscally responsible, pro- growth approach in the State Capitol stands in stark contrast with other elements of the state government, led by Charlie Crist” said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola.

Governor Charlie Crist, also a potential Republican Senate candidate, has come under fire recently for supporting President Obama's reckless stimulus package.

“America faces the prospect of unsustainable spending under President Obama, making it all the more important to support candidates who will reduce the debt and lower the tax burden,” said Chocola. “Speaker Rubio’s announcement is good news for Florida’s families and businesses, and I welcome his entry in the race.

According to Newsweek, Charlie and his crew have been anticipating such a fight and are ready for a fight with Marco Rubio.

Crist partisans sound like they're ready to pounce. As Peter Wallsten noted in a Wall Street Journal piece today, the campaign's oppo researchers are operating in high gear. Among the tidbits they've uncovered: a YouTube video in which Rubio seems to concede that emission caps would become reality, the same caps Rubio has been lambasting Crist for supporting at one time. There's also Rubio's advocacy, during his time in the Florida House, of substituting an increased sales tax for property taxes. That offers Crist an opening to attack Rubio as a tax-hiker. In short, the gloves are coming off.

While Charlie can try and paint Marco Rubio as less than pure on taxes, he still has a problem with the teabaggers--his support of President Obama's stimulus package. Remember when Charlie and Obama joined forces at a pro-stimulus package rally in Fort Myers in Janauary?

"We know that it's important that we pass a stimulus package,'' Florida's popular Republican governor said amid "Yes, we can!" cheers as he introduced the Democratic president. "This is not about partisan politics. This is about rising above that, helping America and reigniting our economy."

Well, that was in February. This is November. It's been nine whole months since February and so much has changed since then....like Charlie's memory of that infamous rally in Fort Myers. Apparently, Charlie never wanted the stimulus to pass. He just felt that it would be great to have the money.

On Wednesday night, Crist told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that he ``didn't endorse'' the stimulus bill and he wouldn't have voted for it. The Associated Press, however, pointed out that Crist had once told AP that he had ``endorsed'' it.

SNIP

On Thursday, when asked by state Capitol reporters if he were changing his position, Crist said, ``I don't think so. I don't think so.''

Why the sudden change in position memory? Perhaps it was a poll that showed that 66% of Florida Republicans felt that Charlie made a mistake in embracing President Obama's stimulus package. Unfortunately for Charlie, the Club for Growth isn't his explanation. The organization released an ad today attack the governor for his support of the president's economic policies.



Somebody pop some popcorn! The teabaggers are going all in against Charlie Crist. That doesn't mean that Democrats can just sit by and do nothing. We need to do our part to defeat Charlie Crist. The only way to vote in the Republican primary next summer is to change your voter registration to Republican. I realize that the idea of joining the GOP might make your skin crawl. It certainly has that effect on me. But remember the big picture here. Buy joining the GOP, you will help the tea-bagger insurgents bring down the party establishment and sew further chaos. So please, switch to the GOP and help destroy as many moderate Republicans as possible.

NY-23 a Bellweather?

Marc Ambinder seems to think that the events in New York's 23rd Congressional district might be a sign of things to come for Florida.

The analog of NY-23 that comes to mind is the Florida GOP Senate primary, and this shows the promise and the limits of analogies. Like NY-23, conservatives have been protesting the GOP establishment's decision to rally around not-so-conservative but ostensibly popular Gov. Charlie Crist at the expense of challenger Marco Rubio. Rubio, like Hoffman, has been winning grassroots straw polls. Rubio, like Hoffman, has run as a populist conservative. Crist has some inherent vulnerabilities that, thanks to Rubio and to an aggressive Florida press corps, are beginning to be exploited. Similarities end, though: Rubio is a professional politician. He's crisper on the hustings. He knows the issues of the state. He's a plausible governor, having been mentored by Jeb Bush, Crist's predecessor. There are no third-party dynamics here, just a bunch of conservative activists who don't want Charlie Crist to be their senator. Late word from Florida tonight: Crist's popularity has dropped. The tag of "Empty Chair Charlie" -- referring to what pollster Tom Eldon calls his "uneventful" three years in office as well as, flirtatiously, to Crist's reputed intellectual fogginess.

Still, Rubio might be the first beneficiary of the Hoffman era of Republican politics -- an era that is inhospitable to moderate Republicans and to Republicans selected by the establishment.

Marco Rubio and his tea-bagger allies would agree with this assessment.

This morning, the GOP establishment-backed Republican, Dede Scozzafava, suspended her campaign, citing fundraising problems. The demise of a stimulus package-supporting moderate Republican is sure to embolden conservative donors and key activist groups across the country. And Rubio is positioned to be the biggest beneficiary anywhere.

"America is a two party nation and instead of packing up and fleeing the GOP, we should launch a coup and take it back," Erick Erickson blogged on RedState today. "Consider NY-23 the first salvo in that coup, with the Florida Senate race right behind it."

If the tea-baggers propel Doug Hoffman to victory in a race for a Congressional seat representing a district in which he does not even live, they won't stop there. What more enticing target than a Republican so moderate that he not only endorsed President Obama's economic stimulus bill, but actually received some support from a prominent liberal blogger.

The one factor that nobody is talking about is the media. If the tea-bagger make Charlie Crist their new target, the media will be more than happy to accomodate. As we saw during the 2008 presidential campaign, there is nothing like a David vs. Goliath campaign to get the media's attention. Marco Rubio, the young attractive outsider, vs Charlie Crist, the establishment politician. The media won't be able to resist.

So the tea-baggers are going to do their part. The media are going to their part. It's up to loyal Democrats to do their part by re-registering as Republicans so we can vote in the closed GOP primary next summer. Remember, a victory for Rubio is a victory for Democrats.

Why Support Marco Rubio?

There are two good reasons for Democrats to support Marco Rubio in the 2010 Republican Senate primary. First, Marco Rubio is a weaker general election candidate than Charlie Crist. Gov. Crist has been relatively popular. A St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald/Bay News 9 poll released this weekend found that 42% of Florida voters found that he was doing an excellent job, with another 39% rating his performance as fair. While that is down from this spring, when he enjoyed support from more than 60% of Florida Democrats and independents, at least some of that can be attributed to an erosion of support among Republicans.

Despite the apparent cracks in Crist's campaign, the polls show him handily defeating Kendrick Meek. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that the presumptive Democratic candidate, Rep. Kendrick Meek would be defeated handily by Gov. Crist. In a matchup against the teabagger candidate, Marco Rubio, Meek fared much better.

Gov. Charlie Crist's lead over former state house speaker Marco Rubio in the 2010 Republican U.S. Senate primary has been cut in half from 55 - 26 percent to 50 - 35 percent, but the Governor tops the leading Democrat, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, 51 - 31 percent among all voters, while Rubio trails Meek 36 - 33 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

If the prospect of an easier general election campaign is not enough to get you to cross party lines and vote in the GOP primary, consider the possibility of a shrinking Republican Party. As David Plouffe, President Obama's presidential campaign manager, explained on Meet The Press this morning, the Sarah Palin/Glenn Beck-led purist tea-bagger movement has the potential to cripple the Republican Party for the foreseeable future.

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If Republicans continue to purge moderates such as Charlie Crist, the party will be unable to put up candidates who could compete for votes from independents and conservative Democrats and moderate and liberal Republicans will continue leave the party in droves. According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, the number of Americans who identify as Republicans has fallen to an all-time low.

Only 20 percent of adults identify themselves as Republicans, little changed in recent months, but still the lowest single number in Post-ABC polls since 1983. Political independents continue to make up the largest group, at 42 percent of respondents; 33 percent call themselves Democrats.

There is always the possibility that Marco Rubio could defeat Kendrick Meek. Right-wing polling outfit Rasmussen recently released a poll showing that Kendrick Meek would lose to either Republican candidate.

A new Rasmussen Reports survey of Florida voters shows Governor Charlie Crist leading Representative Kendrick Meek by a 46% to 34% margin. In August, Crist led by 19 and in June he was ahead by 21.

Former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio leads Meek by a similar margin, 46% to 31%. In August, Rubio led by 13 percentage points.

Even Democratic Party leaders have acknowledged this possibility. MSNBC reported that there has been chatter in DC about finding an alternative to the Miami Democrat as doubts about Charlie Crist's invincibility have risen.

Still, while supporting Marco Rubio doesn't guarantee Democrats another Senate seat, a general election victory by Rubio does provide some advantages that a Charlie Crist win would not. First, a victory for a right-wing candidate will only strengthen the tea-bagger wing of the GOP. If the tea-baggers are able to point to a few victories in the 2010 midterms, it will be hard to ignore the voices of those who argue that the GOP should nominate a pure conservative for president in 2012. The sole voice of reason for Republican moderates will continue to be Meghan McCain.


Second, keeping Charlie Crist out of the Senate denies the Senate moderates another ally. Progressives have been very frustrated with the White House for shaping legislation to appeal to moderate Republicans such as Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Charlie Crist, who joined President Obama at an event in Florida to promote the stimulus this spring, would provide the White House with another opportunity to water-down legislation in the name of bipartisanship.


I submit that supporting Marco Rubio in the GOP Senate primary is a win-win proposition for Florida Democrats. The primary will not be held until August 31, 2010, but in order to vote, you must change your voter registration to Republican at least 29 days before the primary.

Support Democrats! Vote Rubio!