Opinion: ‘Fox News Sunday’ hosts Florida face-off: Crist vs. Rubio
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Well, Sunday is D-day in the Florida Republican primary race for the U.S. Senate seat.
D as in Debate.
“Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace” will broadcast this weekend’s verbal struggle on national TV between the sitting GOP governor Charlie Crist and the former state House speaker, Marco Rubio. To be followed by a panel discussion with Brit Hume, Bill Kristol, Mara Liasson and Juan Williams.
Some folks might say it’s only Florida.
Others would say, It’s only Florida!
This is a closely watched race as another measure of the strength of the “tea party” movement, which abandoned the establishment’s Crist after he literally embraced the Democratic Smoker-in-Chief last year at an economic stimulus rally.
That was back when some folks still believed Joe Shovel Ready Biden‘s oft-stated prediction that the $787-billion economic stimulus bill would actually stimulate employment, not unemployment.
The jobless rate now is officially 9.7% nationally.and 11.9% in Florida, both considerably higher if you count those who’ve abandoned job-hunting.
The Crist-Rubio outcome this summer will also be a measure of the anti-incumbency fervor that appears to be bipartisan this year.
Crist, an incumbent, is much better funded.
But Rubio has the tea party financial fervor that we saw cross so many state lines in that New York 23rd District special election and decisively in the upset Senate triumph by Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts, a longtime liberal bastion.
Rubio has waded into some recent trouble over questionable expenses on his party credit card while in the state Legislature. But that’s not yet messed with the poll numbers.
The polls tell a remarkable “Rocky”-type story. Last August, Crist led Rubio 53-31. The two were essentially tied in December polls. Then, as with the underdog Brown in Massachusetts, the insurgent Rubio began showing momentum.
By January, Rubio had a 49-37 lead. Last month he expanded that to 54-36. And this week’s Rasmussen Reports Poll found the younger man leading Crist by a startling 56-34 margin.
Another Rasmussen survey of a potential three-way race had Rubio as the Republican nominee, Kendrick Meek as the Democrat and Crist running as an independent as Joe Lieberman did in Connecticut when he lost the Democratic primary.
Crist has said he will not run as an independent. But Rasmussen’s numbers produced a GOP winning outcome of 45-25-22 with Crist at the bottom.
It’s a long time until the Florida GOP primary on Aug. 24. But at this point, it may seem longer for Crist than Rubio.
-- Andrew Malcolm
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