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Joining call for balanced playing field

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By TOM JACKSON tjackson

@tampatrib.com

Published: May 20, 2009

National party Chairman Michael Steele's gritty turning-the-corner speech Tuesday notwithstanding, everything on the road ahead for Republicans seems shrouded in fog.

Except for this, which is suddenly utterly clear: Politics as usual are over.

The base may still embrace trickle-down economics as received wisdom, but events at the precinct level - in Florida, anyway - suggest the GOP's core constituency otherwise draws the line at top-down directives. If the procedure comes to resemble political cannibalism, the grassroots seems ready to perform Martin Luther at the church door: Here they stand. They can do no other.

At issue is the party hackery of Jim Greer, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, whose swift interference in the race to choose a GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate evokes Alice's quick-to-convict Queen of Hearts. Instead of nomination first, endorsement after, Greer sought to turn the arrangement on its head.

Here is our popular governor, Charlie Crist, Greer said. Consider him an incumbent.

Increasingly, county executive boards are having none of it. Tuesday, Pasco's Republican Executive Committee joined other counties such as Hillsborough, Hernando and Palm Beach - to name the early risers - in open revolt.

In a two-page resolution, Pasco's committee ordered the state party to stand down: No playing favorites while the contest is undecided. "It was the right thing to do," says Chairman Randy Maggard. "It was important for Pasco to take a stand."

Rebellion at hand

In a moment of crisis over the GOP's bench strength, Florida Republicans are blessed to have two bankable candidates seeking the seat Mel Martinez plans to vacate: a sitting governor and a former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives.

Moreover, the pair personifies, precisely, the intramural argument Republicans have been cultivating since the morning of Nov. 5. Moderate or reaffirm Reagan-esque conservatism? Greer's pre-emptive strike reveals his preference. To say it is not shared by those he purports to represent is to describe the Grand Canyon as a large ditch.

Not that Pasco Republicans are tipping their hands, however electrifying the other guy, 39-year-old Marco Rubio of Miami, was during his unadvertised appearance at the party's Reagan Day dinner Friday.

Says Maggard, "Let the primary run its course. May the best man win. Whoever wins ... we shake hands and that's who we back."

Seems simple enough, although there are certain undeniable downside realities. Treasure spent on primary campaigns may not be replaceable for the general election race. Cracks can appear - in the case of Crist vs. Rubio, will appear - that may resist timely healing.

Repeating past mistakes

Still, rejecting Greer must be done. His unconscionable meddling reflects the go-along, get-along atmosphere that forgave sloppy governing by the Republican majority in George W. Bush's first six years in the White House and precipitated GOP routs in 2006 and 2008.

Crist's breezy embrace of issues hostile to conservative sensibilities - campaigning, with President Obama, for the stimulus whopper; urging scandalously costly energy reforms; putting taxpayers on the hook for enormous losses through public property insurance; nominating a liberal Democrat to the state Supreme Court - sniff of capitulation on behalf of good poll numbers.

But as the onerous effects of the Democrats' federal overreach grow increasingly evident, Republican voters - at least - will everywhere rally to their brightly defined antitheses. In Florida, that describes Rubio. Whether the surge to conservatism misreads the larger nation's disposition and bites Republicans the following November is a risk they almost certainly are willing to take.

On behalf of grassroots Republicans howling about lessons unlearned, Maggard is right to demand a level playing field. Greer must comply. Expeditiously.

Keyword: The Jax Files for Tom Jackson's bonus insights.

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