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Crist foe casting bigger shadow

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By WILLIAM MARCH

wmarch@tampatrib.com

Published: October 25, 2009

TAMPA - Just six months ago, Gov. Charlie Crist seemed invincible.

He was sitting on stratospheric job approval ratings, at least 68 percent. The leading Democratic contender for governor, Alex Sink, didn't want to challenge him if he ran for re-election.

In a possible Senate race, he led his Republican primary opponent, Marco Rubio, by 35 percentage points.

He looked like a shoo-in for any office he chose to run for.

That was then.

Now, Crist appears to be running scared.

His approval ratings are still high in most polls, but have dipped. Campaigning on the thinnest of shoestrings, Rubio has cut his 35-percentage-point deficit to 15 percent, a recent Quinnipiac University poll found. Increasingly, Crist seems out of tune with the hard-edged, talk-show conservatism dominating Republican Party rhetoric nationwide.

"Marco Rubio has awakened the Republican primary voters and this is a race now," said Marian Johnson, political strategist for the Florida Chamber of Commerce.

In response, Crist has stopped ignoring Rubio - the typical approach of a front-runner - and is ramping up his campaign, pushing his conservative credentials.

He has begun running radio ads touting those credentials - ads that Rubio backers say exaggerate his tax- and budget-cutting record.

He is dropping in on local Republican Party meetings to urge party unity and attending evangelical church conferences.

Last week, the governor's office chief of staff, Eric Eikenberg, an experienced political hand, resigned to take over the campaign.

For a popular governor to lose a primary in his own party to Rubio, a little-known former state House speaker from Miami, still seems unlikely - but perhaps no longer impossible.

Crist allies are portraying Rubio's surge as par for the course and not a serious threat to Crist.

"There was always going to come a point where Charlie Crist wouldn't have a 30-point lead," said Brian Ballard, a Tallahassee lobbyist and veteran of GOP politics. "Marco isn't a crazy write-in candidate. He's a credible candidate.

"It was never going to be a blowout, but it's going to be a win for the governor," he said.

Rubio's campaign agrees that he's the underdog.

"We're encouraged by the recent progress, but there have been no champagne celebrations in our camp; ... this will be a tough campaign," spokesman Alex Burgos said.

A fundraising machine

Crist, who could prove to be the state's most successful political fundraiser, is blowing away Rubio in campaign cash.

Until now, Crist has been sitting on that money, with a skeleton campaign staff of three and little campaign travel, except to fundraisers. He clearly hoped to preserve his war chest for a general election battle in which President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton are expected to boost the likely Democratic nominee, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami.

Eikenberg's move and Crist's stepped-up political appearances - he dropped in unexpectedly at a Pinellas County Republican Party meeting two weeks ago - suggest he's no longer on the sidelines.

Rubio, meanwhile, has had a staff of four for months and is traveling the state daily for appearances at party events. With his challenge to Crist viewed as a cause celèbre by conservatives, he got national attention for pulling in $1 million in the third quarter of 2009, even though it was less than half of Crist's haul.

Democrats, meanwhile, are reveling in Crist's problems - the national Democratic Party's Senate campaign committee has issued news releases noting Rubio's successes in fundraising and polls.

They have good reason. Polls show Crist easily beating Meek in a general election, but Meek has led Rubio in some polls.

Even assuming Crist wins the primary, the battle against Rubio won't help him against Meek.

"It's going to be tricky for Crist to keep those high ratings with indies (no-party voters) if he moves too far to the right in the primary" to hold off Rubio, said Eric Schultz of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.

Crist has long appealed to crossover Democrats and no-party voters, expanding his support. In recent polls, his approval ratings among no-party voters have edged higher than his approval ratings in his own party.

He is showing signs of rightward movement to address that.

•In recent weeks, state Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer, chosen by Crist for the post, has become a fountain of extreme anti-Obama rhetoric. He has claimed, for example, that health care reform could lead to "forced abortions."

•Crist will headline a Christian Family Coalition dinner in Miami in November; he recently showed up at the Apostolic and Prophetic Conference of the El Rey Jesus ministry in Miami.

•His radio ads bash Obama's stimulus spending and boast that Crist has cut state spending and taxes.

"The president has the same tired answer for every problem - to spend more of your money," says one. Another says: "Enough is enough - that's my message to President Obama."

But what isn't mentioned is Crist's support for Obama's stimulus package, which he relied on to balance the budget.

"Here In Florida I've slashed government by 10 percent - that's $7 billion," one ad says. "And we've passed the biggest tax cuts in Florida history."

The ads omit that the state budget had to drop because the recession slashed revenue, and that the most recent budget was balanced only with the help of some $2 billion in new taxes on tobacco and fees for driver's licenses and car registration.

Strong party backing

Despite these problems, Crist retains the strong support of the Republican Party establishment.

He has announced campaign organizations in four counties, including Hillsborough, that include nearly every important elected GOP official.

The national party isn't retreating from its early endorsement.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, angered many pro-Rubio conservatives by siding with Crist as soon as he entered the race, calling him "the best candidate in 2010 to ensure that we maintain the checks and balances that Floridians deserve in the United States Senate," meaning holding the seat in GOP hands.

The campaign committee and Cornyn haven't backed off that assessment, said spokeswoman Amber Marchand. "We are confident that he will be elected the next U.S. senator from Florida next November," she said.

Reporter William March can be reached at (813) 259-7761.

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