Greetings from Miami, where the weather is warm and the politics are positively scorching. Down in these parts, the talk has centered on the struggles of Gov. Charlie Crist in the Republican primary for the Senate against former House Speaker Marco Rubio, who is challenging him from the right.
Rubio was once considered a long shot. But a recent Rasmussen poll has pegged the race as a dead heat. As Ed Kilgore noted in these pages, Rubio has become a star in the national conservative movement, winning the endorsements of the right’s true believers eager to bag themselves another RINO in the moderate Crist.
Now comes word that Crist has lost the endorsement of two key backers:
Miami Republican Reps. Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart have pulled their endorsement of Gov. Charlie Crist for the U.S. Senate, dealing his campaign a significant blow in South Florida’s Hispanic community.
When asked by the Miami Herald the reason for pulling their support, Lincoln Diaz-Balart was cryptic, saying Crist “left us no alternative and he knows why.” The Herald reports that it might have something to do with Crist passing over a prosecutor recommended for a North Florida county judgeship by Lincoln Diaz-Balart.
Whatever the reason, it’s the latest round of bad news for Crist, whose moderate Republicanism has run afoul of a state party that — like the national conservative movement — has the urge to purge.
But that’s not all! Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer has been facing calls for his resignation from state party leaders who have accused him of mismanaging the state GOP’s finances and mishandling its political operations. As Crist’s handpicked GOP chairman, Greer has been widely seen as devoting much of his efforts to Crist’s campaign. In fact, Greer had sought to snuff out Rubio’s primary challenge early on, a move that certainly did not endear him to the party’s restive base.
(Now, before you go and think that Greer is a reasonable, level-headed Republican being targeted by an inflamed rank-and-file, think again. Remember when President Obama gave that televised speech to students across the country at the beginning of the school year and caused a right-wing meltdown? Here was Greer’s Glenn Beck-ian response: “As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology.”)
Greer has responded by sending out a letter accusing his critics of being “bent on the destruction of the Republican Party.” He has also agreed to hold a special meeting to rescind his chairmanship, as his critics had demanded — but claimed in his letter that the rules do not allow for such a move at the special meeting.
One thing seems certain: with the well-funded Crist and his GOP chairman now fighting for their political lives, the Florida GOP civil war is only going to get uglier. After weeks of watching progressives duke it out over health care, it’s nice to be distracted by the internecine wars on the other side for a change.
