Crist taking off gloves earlier than expected

Faced with an onslaught of bad news for his U.S. Senate campaign, Gov. Charlie Crist is starting to fight back.

Crist allies say he will begin taking a more aggressive approach to his Republican primary opponent, former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, who has seized the momentum in their race during the past few months.

This fall, Crist has seen one news story after another portray Rubio as the new darling of conservatives, and Crist, thanks in part to his missteps, as flailing or hypocritical.

Crist has been ignoring Rubio, even as Rubio bashed him - common tactics for an underdog challenger and front-runner.

But Eric Eikenberg, Crist's campaign manager, said the campaign is about to become more aggressive against Rubio.

"Republicans who will vote in this primary will be informed of Speaker Rubio's record, a record that has not been publicly aired at this point," he said. "There are parts of it that don't jibe with what he's saying on the campaign trail."

Eikenberg cited Rubio's record on taxes, cap-and-trade energy legislation and his campaign's hard line on illegal immigration.

"When you serve in a public role, you can't run away from your record."

The Crist camp has begun putting out negative releases about Rubio, as Rubio has been doing for months to Crist, and Crist allies have been suggesting tough stories about Rubio to reporters.

Some of those suggestions are bearing fruit: stories about whether Rubio's legislative record matches his conservative rhetoric, and comparing Crist and Rubio's records on gun rights.

Crist might be moving against Rubio earlier than he had planned.

Traditionally, said GOP political consultant Corey Tilley, public campaigning in Florida begins after the election year's legislative session ends, which would mean May 2010. The public pays little attention before then, Tilley said.

"Deciding when to launch your strategy is what campaigns are all about," he said. "Sometimes it takes discipline to wait until the timing is right."

Though he's been through a run of bad news, Crist isn't losing. His fundraising dwarfs Rubio's, and he still leads by 15 or more points in polls.

"Most candidates would still gladly trade places with him," Tilley said. "He's in the driver's seat."

But the Rubio buzz among party insiders and political junkies "is becoming problematic," said another Tallahassee GOP strategist, Geoffrey Becker.

"It's distracting," Becker said. "He's got to get control over it."

Crist recently moved Eikenberg to the campaign from his position as governor's office chief of staff, with indications the move was made sooner than planned. He also added a media spokeswoman to what had been a skeleton campaign staff.

Crist has a long way to go to restore the air of charmed invincibility he once had.

Each week for the past couple of months, he has seemed to reach a new low. The bottom might have come within the past week:

•Rubio was endorsed by the business-backed conservative group Club for Growth, which is known to spend millions in Republican primaries, and he was offered a keynote speaker slot at the February meeting of the Conservative Political Action Committee.

•A New York Times front-page story focused on the event that has most stigmatized Crist with conservatives, his February meeting and embrace with President Barack Obama to support the economic stimulus package.

•Other media piled on. The Wall Street Journal illustrated a front-page story on disgraced Fort Lauderdale political fundraiser Scott Rothstein with a copy of an inscribed photo from Crist to Rothstein. A Politico blog proclaimed in a headline, "Crist losing his mojo."

•Two unbelievable explanations Crist offered about Obama and the stimulus plan drew jeers.

When critics noted that Crist avoided meeting Obama during the president's October trip to Florida, Crist claimed he had not known Obama would be in Florida for one of the trip's two days. But aides' e-mails show he had been invited to meet Obama that day.

Crist then denied having endorsed the stimulus plan, though a letter and video of him praising and supporting it were on the public record. A Village Voice writer dug up an interview in which Crist said that had he been in the Senate, he "absolutely" would have voted for the stimulus.

In the face of the onslaught of negative publicity, the governor's office media spokeswoman, Erin Isaac, who had been with Crist since his 2005-06 campaign, abruptly left her job.

Meanwhile, Rubio has continued seeing signs of support from the party base.

This week, Rubio won another in a string of straw polls held by a county GOP organization, this one in Orange County, and state party Chairman Jim Greer, a Crist ally, is facing questions from a group of high-level party officials dissatisfied with the administration of the party.

In accordance with his nice-guy image, Crist is not known for readily and aggressively going negative in campaigns, but he has shown a willingness to do so.

In 2006, Tom Gallagher, opposing Crist in the GOP primary for governor, held a news conference and ran television ads contending that Crist was pro-choice on abortion.

Crist promptly shot back with an ad saying Gallagher had a history of vicious politics and supporting new taxes. In the general election, he attacked Jim Davis for missing votes in Congress.