Okay, I’m going to have to be really honest here. My reaction to Kristofer’s hit pieces on Marco Rubio are somewhere in between — in PG-rated terms — what the heck is this nonsense?, and What position on the Crist campaign are you angling for?
As a preface, I should note that there are two reasonably strong cases to be made for supporting Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio (neither of which I am convinced by):
(1) He is a rising moderate in a party that desperately needs public faces that are inviting and proven to be popular. His popularity among the elderly and his proven ability to attract Hispanic votes are especially crucial. Even now, in this brutal political environment, he maintains a reasonably strong approval rating. When someone says, “Where is your Big Tent?,” we can point to a major player in a swing state.
(2) He can coast to the seat, meaning that we can utilize more resources on Kelly Ayotte, Rob Portman, and Roy Blunt — and furthermore, we’ll probably hold the seat forever, barring some awful scandal.
Note that neither number has anything to do with fiscal policy. Also, both are fairly ephemeral, speaking to the now and not the long-term. Even the thought that Crist will hold the seat until he dies sounds like a gag-inducing thought when you consider that we want a working majority, rather than just a majority, one day. And by ‘working majority,’ I don’t mean a godawful Frist-styled one.
I will readily concede that Kristofer is right that Rubio has not been consistent in his rhetoric regarding pork. But this supposedly devastating critique is only so if one’s rationale for supporting Rubio is that he is truly an ideologically pure conservative god. For those of us who just think that he’s better than Crist, a superior explanation will have to be given.
What is the practical implication, here? Read between the lines: “Rubio has been hypocritical when it comes to fiscal policy regarding pork-barrel spending.” Therefore, what? “Therefore, one should vote for Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio.” Why? “Because Rubio is bad on pork spending” No, no, I mean, what about Crist? “Well, let’s stay on subject.” But isn’t the subject which candidate is superior? “Yes, and Rubio is bad on pork.”
And so it goes. Kristofer spends vanishingly little time talking about Charlie Crist, and rightly so: his support of the stimulus breaks the back of what’s tolerable in the party when there’s a viable alternative. (That is: no primarying Snowe, kids.) And Rubio is indeed viable. Crist may win by twenty points against Meek, and Rubio may win by five. But a win is a win. And we don’t need to run a Snowe-type in Florida to win. We can do better in Florida than a stimulus-supporting, on-again-off-again swamp-worshiper. I’m sure, given Kristofer’s assurance, that Senator Crist will never try to bring home the bacon — of course not! — but pork accounts for a shockingly small percentage of federal spending. Pork is a symptom, not a cause. It’s laughable when looked at next to the $800 billion stimulus.
This is a choice between imperfect alternatives, in other words. Both candidates are imperfect. One is a lot more imperfect than the other.
Crist helped to put us and our children into greater debt. Now let’s help Rubio put Crist out of a job.
Talk to Alex Knepper at apkkib@aol.com
November 10th, 2009 at 1:11 am
Agreed.
November 10th, 2009 at 1:21 am
Alex,
You mean Roy Blunt. And don’t jump the gun on Ayotte either.
November 10th, 2009 at 2:41 am
Correct two imperfect candidates.
Obviously Rubio wins if Bush gets involved which sets up a national scorched earth election, otherwise Crist hangs on. But I don’t care who wins.
The sad thing is that the winner will be propelled into favouritism for 2016 if Romney loses to Obama. Which is wrong as neither are presidential material.
November 10th, 2009 at 2:45 am
But it is curious that to AK it’s no big deal if anyone flip flops unless his name is Willard Mitt Romney.
November 10th, 2009 at 3:00 am
Heath said, “The sad thing is that the winner will be propelled into favouritism for 2016 if Romney loses to Obama.”
Why? Niether is “that” appealing in the first place…AND the republican party WHEN IT IS CONSERVATIVE, can win without florida. Not that we would have to. So why are they automatically the favorite. There are still young and more trusted republicans with just as much and even more experience than these two. Hell, i should be president before these two. However, i would not be constitutionally eligible in 2016…so i’ll have to wait for 2020.
November 10th, 2009 at 4:28 am
We need another candidate to enter this race.
November 10th, 2009 at 6:57 am
Mr. Crist is a sore loser. He is not conservative. Hope he will lose the Fla. primary election. He support Obama’s job stimulus bill.
November 10th, 2009 at 7:10 am
[...] has a good post on the Rubio/Crist race. I think that number 2 is an illusion, but number 1 is a reasonable [...]
November 10th, 2009 at 7:25 am
“Favouritism”?!
Listen, pal: We don’t appreciate such fowl language south of the 49th parallel!
November 10th, 2009 at 7:40 am
This is one of the few contests where I take Alex’ side over Kristofer’s. However, I certainly do not have the passion about this race that I had for NY-23 for various reasons. Thus I am not losing much sleep and no money over this Florida contest.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:23 am
Happy birthday fellow Marines!
November 10th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Ohio Joe, it’s because your darling hasn’t endorsed Rubio here, pretty simple. If she does, your passion will follow.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:37 am
“Ohio Joe, it’s because your darling hasn’t endorsed Rubio here, pretty simple. If she does, your passion will follow.” Very funny. Florida is not an issue of principle unlike NY-23. The people of Florida have an open primary and the people of New York did not. Mr. Crist is not being appointed by a few party gangsters. The fact that a significant wing of the Romney camp is too freaking thick to grasp this simple fact is yet another indication that the Romneyites are not fit to govern.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:43 am
OJ, we were smart enough to see the outcome….we told you that would be what happened, and you all poo pooed it! We all said we liked Hoffman better, said it many times, but we DIDN’T want Pelosi having another democrat…..that’s what happened, and it can yet cost us some very key votes.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:49 am
This is rich, you are lecturing us about how you warned us that Mr. Hoffman could never win, yet he received 45 or 46% of the vote, but Queen Dede who was supposed to win only received 5 or 6%. It should not take high school math to figure out who split the vote. Frankly this logic is causing more explotions than fireworks on the 4th of July.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:51 am
She was leading before Hoffman jumped in and received all the support. She would have won; few people deny that.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:01 am
This was Kris’s argument? To me it was totally empty, like when he started his Palin thing. I figured that was just hormones, but that doesn’t explain Rubio.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:01 am
“She was leading before Hoffman jumped in and received all the support. She would have won; few people deny that.”
The best Ms. Scozzafava could do was get 35% and a plus 9. You expect me to believe that she would have hung on to victory despite the fact that there were so many undecided voters and many of them were not happy with her. If there was no Mr. Hoffman, Conservatives would have most likely stayed home. How does that translate into a GOP win?
She was always a loose cannon waiting to explode and that is exactly what happened despite cries to the contrary.
Poll Date Sample Hoffman (C) Owens (D) Scozzafava (R) Spread
Final Results — – 45.2 49.3 5.5 Owens +4.1
Siena 11/1 – 11/1 606 LV 41 36 6 Hoffman +5
PPP (D) 10/31 – 11/1 1747 LV 51 34 13 Hoffman +17
Siena 10/27 – 10/29 700 LV 35 36 20 Owens +1
Daily Kos/R2000 10/26 – 10/28 600 LV 32 33 21 Owens +1
Minuteman/Neighborhood (R) 10/25 – 10/26 366 LV 34 29 14 Hoffman +5
CFG/Basswood Research (R) 10/24 – 10/25 300 LV 31 27 20 Hoffman +4
Daily Kos/R2000 10/19 – 10/21 600 LV 23 35 30 Owens +5
Siena 10/11 – 10/13 617 LV 23 33 29 Owens +4
Siena 9/27 – 9/29 622 LV 16 28 35 Scozzafava +7
CFG/Basswood Research (R) 9/17 – 9/17 300 LV 17 17 20 Scozzafava +3
McLaughlin (R) 8/25 – 8/26 300 LV 16 17 26 Scozzafava +9
November 10th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Before Hoffman jumped in, she was expected to win…..republicans had won that district for over 100 years. Third party candidates are devestating to our causes. I hope we’ve learned that, but many of you seem not to have done so.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:18 am
“…..republicans had won that district for over 100 years.” First of all that is not entirely accuate, but oh well, perhaps the GOP gangsters might not pull the same stunt in 2010, but then again, the party elite in some states do not seem to care.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
What is not accurate about the 100+ year reigh of Republicans?
November 10th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
“What is not accurate about the 100+ year reigh of Republicans?”
Well, as somebody stated before, for what it is worth wikipedia does not believe that this district has always been represented by a Republican:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NY-23
November 10th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Conservative,
It depends on how you define “NY-23″ through all those decades of reapportionment. Do you stick with whatever was called the 23rd, in which case, NY-23 used to be in Manhattan. Or do you still with as much of the geography as possible, which can morph quite a bit over the decades.