Alex Daoud Politician Gone Bad -- But He Spills the Beans!! By Geniusofdespair

In his book “Sins of South Beach” the former, 3 time, Miami Beach Mayor Alex Daoud talks about the day Lucia Dougherty told him she was leaving her Miami Beach position. Lucia Dougherty was the Miami Beach City Attorney before she was the Miami City Attorney which was before she became a land-use attorney for Greenberg Traurig (where she currently works). Daoud lamented the loss of Lucia as Miami Beach Attorney in the late 80’s. He said:

“I wanted her to stay for selfish reasons, to protect me from politically dangerous votes with her legal opinions. Supported by the right legal opinion, a politician could vote any way he or she wanted with total immunity. A city attorney’s opinion could even save a politician from going to jail, and manipulated correctly, help make him a lot of money as well.”

Sins of South Beach - what a great book written by Alex Daoud. In today's Miami Herald they report he is in a legal tug of war with his daughter over ownership of the house he lives in. He is penniless except for Social Security he says.

Get involved buy his book.  For example he writes about his cousin Chris Korge (calling him a bag man) and just about everything else going on at the time when he was mayor of Miami Beach. You will read about dozens of sunshine violations (we all know go on). It will give you a window into the life of a politician who went really bad but the people who voted for him over and over really liked him, they kept reelecting him (Like the residents of Pepe Diaz's district keep reelecting him). Go figure.

You will learn a lot about government in South Florida, what staff does to help the politicians, law firms, etc. -- the worst of it -- if you read it.  He needs the money and you will become a more informed voter, I hope.  I wrote about this book in 2009 when I read it.

Alex and Daughter Kelly in better days.

I believe we have a dozen politicians in power or running for office now that are almost this bad. David Rivera come to mind?

Alex Daoud Reminisces and I Gag. By Geniusofdespair

In his book “Sins of South Beach” the former, 3 time, Miami Beach Mayor Alex Daoud talks about the day Lucia Dougherty told him she was leaving her Miami Beach position. Lucia Dougherty was the Miami Beach City Attorney before she was the Miami City Attorney which was before she became a land-use attorney for Greenberg Traurig (where she currently works). Daoud lamented the loss of Lucia as Miami Beach Attorney in the late 80’s. He said:

“I wanted her to stay for selfish reasons, to protect me from politically dangerous votes with her legal opinions. Supported by the right legal opinion, a politician could vote any way he or she wanted with total immunity. A city attorney’s opinion could even save a politician from going to jail, and manipulated correctly, help make him a lot of money as well.”

Hmmm. And I though the attorneys were working on behalf of citizens. Stupid me.

Daoud describes a meeting with the next City Attorney, when he told him that he had the votes to fire him, and suggested he quit, which the City Attorney agreed to do. Daoud wrote about what he thought, after the meeting:

“Finally I was rid of this thorn in my side. There was just one little problem. I had violated one of the strongest commandments of the political code: Thou shalt not destroy a dangerous political opponent when thou art politically corrupt.”

Finally, Daoud also looked back on the free union labor he had at his house, dubbed by him “The Mayor’s Mansion”:

“After a while, the unions stopped sending free laborers to my house. Then the free carpenters stopped coming and finally the electricians. The vote I had cast to award millions of dollars in contracts bought only so much goodwill.”

Thus ends my read of the “Sins of South Beach.” Dozens of examples of sunshine violations, bribery, money laundering, hits at Cousin/Lobbyist Chris Korge and tricks of the trade are all a blur now. The Book has left me exhausted and disheartened because I know without a doubt: Nothing much has changed here in Miami.

A Shot Across the Bow: More like, watching pigs slobbering over Miami Beach tax dollars. Guest Blog by Mr. Sunny

Here it is on Jan 2 and I am very angry. Usually this time of year, not just New Year's Eve or Day, is a time to consider my life. Sometimes it is about planning the future or reviewing the past. Other times it is peaceful contemplation with gratitude for all that life has offered me. This year has been more about trying to understand the world in which we live - talks of fiscal cliffs, negativity in politics, the deaths of young children or the Hurricane Sandy's and climate changes impact, have all left me questioning what it all means. That mournful reverie ended up turning into boiling anger upon reading a Miami New Times article about corruption in Miami Beach's City Hall.

The truth is I have been angry for quite some time with the Commissioners and staff of the City of Miami Beach. I don't want to run in the streets carrying signs. I am too shy to stand on a corner to harangue passersby about what is wrong. I have too many friends who are complacent in their lives which leaves me with no one to talk to. I have thought of running for office, but what about raising money or dealing with the mud slinging? I want to make use of my anger. I want to help my hometown emerge stronger from the mess of the past few years of arrests and accusations to be a City of which I can be proud. This blog is a place to start, posing my questions to Eye on Miami readers about how corruption in Miami Beach can be so rampant and how so many people, residents included, can be so complacent?

The Miami New Times article was about Gus Lopez, former procurement director for the City of Miami Beach. He is not long departed from the City and surely not fondly remembered but my guess he will be in the news for a good part of the year as the City of Miami Beach grapples with cleaning up the sordid aftermath of his tenure.

Not only are we as a City to suffer the dribs and drabs of these cases leaking out like a slow water torture, I am left wondering about the elephant in the living room -- the Convention Center -- a $25K payment said to be given to Gus from one of the developers. Are there more yet to be revealed incidents of corruption? The other elephant in the room is how on earth did this and the other instances of corruption, reported this year happen, and where will it all end?

Every article in the mainstream media assiduously avoids asking the big questions about how far or how high up the corruption goes. None points to a possible culture that allows this to fester in our City. Has Miami Beach become so inured of corruption that we don't believe that someone should be held accountable? Has anything really changed since Former Mayor Alex Daoud's  Sins of South Beach?

Chris Korge: Fromer Mayor Alex Daoud, Outs His Cousin Korge's Bribes. By Geniusofdespair

Hillary Clinton’s money man, fundraiser for oodles of State and Federal candidates, was highlighted in Former Miami Beach Mayor's tell all book. What Alex Daoud said about Korge in his book is pretty toxic and Daoud stands firmly behind his words.

Daoud, a city of Miami Beach Commissioner at the time, said he got pressured by Korge to get him his first job, as an Assistant Attorney in Miami Beach. Daoud said he felt guilty using his influence to get Korge the job, but Korge begged him to do it.

In His book “Sins of South Beach” Daoud recounts two instances when Korge delivered bribes to him. One bribe he accepted. The other he did not.

The second bribe was when Daoud was facing federal criminal charges about to be indicted. He described the meeting with Korge over the bribe:

“During this crucial time, Chris Korge, my cousin and the man who had given me my first bribe as mayor, tried to bribe me again. My cousin had catapulted from his early job in the city attorney’s office to become a wealthy national political lobbyist. He was making big money — the Marriot Hotel chain had hired him as a lobbyist. They wanted to build a hotel on the only oceanfront city-owned park in South Beach. Chris offered me twenty five thousand in cash for my support and vote on the project. I refused, telling him that the FBI was about to indict me. Unbelievably, he raised the ante to fifty thousand.”

This is why reading this book is making me nauseous. The assertions made about Korge are enough to make me want to puke. Politicians treat Korge like a God. he is respected and put on Boards. But if what Daoud said in his book is true, he is nothing but low-life scum, a bottom-feeder and should be treated as such.

The circumstances of the first bribe, as Daoud describes it:

"After the swearing in (new term), my cousin, the former Chief Assistant Miami Beach Attorney Chris Korge congratulated me and handed over a large brown envelope with ten thousand dollars in cash. My cousin hadn't helped me during my election for mayor, but now he was acting as a lobbyist trying to bribe me. In one of the ironic twists that characterizes local politics, it was a campaign contribution from Jim Dougherty, now the husband of former (Miami Beach) city attorney Lucia Allen (Lucia Dougherty), who had been my close confident and lover...My cousin's candor on the matter surprised me; he was acting as a bagman for some attorney I hardly knew.

Housing crash collapses stent in developers' heart, by gimleteye

In Miami, the battle to protect the Urban Development Boundary of Florida's largest county encapsulates the shipwreck of unsustainable development in America's fastest growing regions. The broader issue will manifest in the 2008 election for president.

What will manifest is not a partisan fight so much as the eclipse of a political formula nearly 20 years in the making: the incremental loss of federal and state regulatory authority in favor of local control in order to service the "free market".

It is interesting, of course, that Congress is now considering ways to rescue the "free market" for housing, construction and development. What is being discussed is the biggest bail-out of banks and homeowners in US history. And that is not even part of the Federal Reserve program to lower key interest rates further, despite evidence of rampant inflation.

It is possible--even probable--candidates for president will first fight over the bones of failing models of growth before explaining to American voters how the disaster occurred in the first place. To hasten the moment, it is necessary to pull the threads, to the beginning as it were, and reveal angels for all their sins.

The fiasco is on full view in Florida--whose natural resources and sustainability have been gnawed away at all ends, and in Miami-Dade county in particular by economic interests that invested in candidates who supported "devolution" of regulatory authority in order to extract maximum value from land purchased at exorbitant prices, just a few years ago.

Political candidates and the mainstream media are loathe for these connections to be made visible. Far easier to focus--as The Miami Herald did just yesterday--on ever more grandiose plans for development like 1000 foot towers proposed by developers without even noting, not in a phrase or a paragraph, the very same developers are mired in financial and legal difficulties involving existing projects begging for tenants and owners.

Just like a shoreline revealed by a retreating tide in advance of a tidal wave, declining housing markets are showing the distortion of government and its purposes in service of unsustainable economic development.

In theory, the political philosophy that has driven Florida for the past decade--buffed to a shine by two-term governor Jeb Bush--spurns state mandates in favor of local decision-making. But "devolution" of authority was not a mantra that Bush begat.

President Bill Clinton embraced the concept to co-opt Republican and independent votes; at least enough to win the White House in 1992 and especially in 1996 after the dramatic shift in Congress through the 1994 election cycle.

When the political and economic history of the past decade is written (and it will be written, in terms comparative to events leading to the Great Depression), what should be scrutinized first and foremost is how the dismantling of the regulatory atmosphere governing development--from the issuance of mortgages, to rules governing banks and insurance, to the filling of wetlands-- dove-tailed with fiscal and monetary policies like low interest rates of the Federal Reserve to ignite a bubble in construction and development that did what the Union did to the South: it drove Old Dixie down.

In South Florida, the components of this formula combined in a such a powerful way that resistance--from environmental and civic groups--was ground to dust.

The Homestead Air Force Base battle in south Miami Dade is often held up as a victory, to the contrary. What the air base controversy demonstrated (from its origins in the wreckage of Hurricane Andrew in 1992), in fact, was the integrity of the US military which finally refused to allow the motives of private citizens to push it around, no matter how well organized they were politically. In South Florida, the Homestead Air Force Base "victory" did not result in any coalescing of environmental forces or further energy to counter the effects of what was to come.

In a blazingly short period of time, thousands of acres of farmland in South Dade turned into platted subdivisions, as if by financial pixie dust. It was no different in West Palm Beach, or Orange County, or Tampa Bay. Let 10,000 suburbs bloom, was the cry from state legislatures around the nation during the rise of the biggest asset bubble in US financial history.

While Florida environmental groups struggled and competed for contributions to bolster their own small staffs, Wall Street bankers minted money, bonuses and fees through easy credit, securitization of debt, and lax lending practices--all part of a parcel with the weakened capacity of land use regulations and local politicians encouraged, by all means including Bahamian poker chips, to take their foot off the regulatory brakes.

Never in the history of the US democracy has so much damage been inflicted on the economy in so short a period of time as the decade beginning in 1998, marked in Florida with the election of Jeb Bush.

In 2004 and 2005, developers and their lobbyists ran around Miami-Dade county, like their hair was on fire with the enthusiasms of growth. They showed a powerpoint presentation to every business audience in town, with sharp graphics and tables depicting how county planners were wrong in their hesitation, how there was an absolute need to increase the spatial extent of land available through zoning for more platted subdivisions.

During these years, moving the Urban Development Boundary galvanized the building lobby and the lawyering class and enlisted the sympathetic ear of the mainstream media whose revenues and profits increasingly relied on big advertisements for real estate.

Finally, in 2006, the State of Florida forced the local county commissioners in Miami-Dade to recognize that there was not enough water in the region to sustain all the growth and development applications proposed outside the urban service area. The county, with the lowest water utility rates-- and lowest water re-use capacity in the state-- began to plan for billions of dollars of infrastructure upgrades.

The purpose of these upgrades was not to alleviate quality of life deficits for existing taxpayers and residents (if it were, then the investment would have been made in a "Marshall Plan" to fix the massive traffic nightmares afflicting the entire region) so much as to pave the way for state approvals for new developments outside the Urban Development Boundary.

In 2008, once again, developers have flooded local government offices with new initiatives to change zoning and to move development past the urban service area in Miami Dade. Some are repeat applications, made palatable by land owners' offers of land to build schools or highway improvements and interchanges, or, the prospective use of railways to alleviate traffic for future residents.

Today another Florida Republican governor, Charlie Crist, appears to be aware how threadbare and bankrupt yesterday's sales pitches sound. In April, local county commissioners in Miami will be taking up the matter of the recent state objections to developers' applications outside the urban service area: they are hoping to gain through rezoning property value that is essentially worthless until the underlying zoning is changed.

No doubt there will be clamor and justification (Jobs!) for whatever assistance government can bring to the table for the development industries and their lobbyists.

Will it take another Depression for sanity to return to the application of regulations in the economic life of our nation, battered by the unrestrained impulses of greed and fraud masked as good? I hope not.

The All Powerful "Non-Group" in Miami. By Geniusofdespair

According to a 2004 article in BNet, Raul Masvidal said he and Armando Codina were the first Cuban Americans to join the “Non-Group” (Miami’s power elite in the 80’s).

In (disgraced Miami Beach's) Former Mayor Alex Daoud’s tell-all book, “Sins of South Beach”, he said Union Leader, Ed Stevens, named some of the members of the Non-Group during a meeting they had in 1984(5?):

Ted Arison, CEO of Carnival; Alvah Chapman, CEO of Knight Ridder; David Paul, CEO of CenTrust; Arthur Courshon, CEO of Jefferson National Bank; Stephen Muss owner of the Fontainebleau (Muss calls himself a "third generation developer" according to BNet).

Daoud said Stephens also said rumor had it that auto giant, Norman Braman was affiliated with the group, and: “Several Cubans have been allowed to join, but they’re the leaders of the Latin Builders Association.” Stephen’s said (Daoud’s recollection) of the group: “They’re a very secretive organization, and it’s impossible to get a complete list of the members.”

Daoud asked Stephens why, if the Non-Group is so powerful, hasn’t the Miami Herald written about them. Stephen’s told Daoud: “The Herald isn’t going to write about them. They control the newspaper. Never forget that the Miami Herald is a moneymaking corporation with no social conscience. They only care about advertising dollars.”

So, when Gimleteye emphasizes the power wielded by certain individuals, think about the Non-Group. Miami is pretty much still run by developers and a select few. Names might change but the power structure is still there. Frankly, I was surprised at the power of bankers to manipulate our political system, that Daoud describes. Bankers get off easy on our pages.

Experiencing “The Thrill of Adulation.” By Geniusofdespair

I am reading the book, “Sins of South Beach” (the true story of corruption, violence and the making of Miami Beach) by disgraced Miami Beach three-time Mayor, Alex Daoud. I am only on chapter two. The writing is stilted (looks whose talking) but I am finding it fascinating. He talks about arriving at a professional tennis match after his recent election. He said:

“When I entered, the crowd applauded me....for the first time in my life, I knew the thrill of adulation.”

I am telling you, adulation must be like a drug to these politicians. And the developers/lobbyists/lawyers know just how to dispense it. I am 52 pages into the book, Daoud has only been a Commissioner for a few weeks, and he is already trading favors and promising votes for the favors. Until I get further, to where he talks about his first Cousin Lobbyist Chris Korge, check out this vintage story in Miami New Times about Daoud. He said of his book: "I just wanted to write the real story. The real story of politics never gets out."

GOP Senate Primary in Florida: does anyone know what it means to be a Republican conservative? by gimleteye

The Wall Street Journal reports that the same Republican forces who attempted a putsch on a safe GOP seat in the NY 23 Congressional District against an incumbent deemed to be too moderate, Dede Scozzafava; are now planning to turn to the US Senate primary race in Florida, with a plan to similarly purge Gov. Charlie Crist who is running against Marco Rubio, a telegenic former House majority leader from Miami who is a stand-in for former Governor Jeb Bush. What are Gov. Crist's sins? From all appearances, there is one: last February he stood with President Obama and supported the $787 billion federal stimulus plan. But what really is the nature of that sin?

Gov. Charlie Crist came to office, after two terms of Jeb Bush in Tallahassee, and essentially behaved as though the former governor never existed. On the surface, all is swell between the Crist and Bush camps; but underneath there is simmering tension that the Jeb Bush legacy-- a positive outcome compared to George W. Bush presidency-- had been shunted aside by the current governor, whose amiability perfectly covers over roiling GOP politics beneath the surface. The June 5 Washington Times opinion (June 5, "Florida needs a little Sunshine") signaled a chapter in the civil war within the GOP, extending far beyond the borders of this politically significant swing state. So far, there is more more heat than light. Watching medieval monks argue how many angels fit on the head of a pin is nearly as illuminating. "Jeb Bush recently said that the party needs to stop looking back to Reagan and start looking toward the future. Marco Rubio is that future."

The glowing editorial in the Washington Times is filled with the same tired canards and code words whose meaning, in terms of defining "conservative", is a continuing mystery. So, what are the sins that the conservatives are pinning on Gov. Charlie Crist?

One; that he supported President Obama's stimulus package. It seems not to matter that the $787 billion fiscal stimulus plan sprung from a three page document hastily drawn up by former US Treasury Secretary under President Bush, Henry Paulson, within hours of what experts believed was a near meltdown of the financial system. So, are the conservative Republicans who support Rubio/Jeb Bush repudiating President Bush, too?

The question needs to be answered by the GOP radical wing that is obsessed with purging moderates from within its midst: does the party also oppose the trillions of taxpayer dollars that have been thrown into the nation's banking system-- mainly benefiting Republican bankers, by the way-- in order to maintain the illusion of capital ratios to prevent the federal government from having to shut them down? Do the conservatives also oppose the $8,000 tax credit for first time home buyers, that is propping up production homebuilders who are also, for the most part, Republicans?

In the last session of the Florida legislature, Governor Crist gave big money Republicans--from the Growth Machine-- their most important prize: freedom from regulations governing growth management in Florida. These special interests actually argued, without challenge by Democrats, that the collapse of housing values was caused by onerous land use regulations that developed in the 1980's and implemented, yes, by state Republicans. Since Jeb Bush was elected governor, the state GOP had targeted state regulatory authority. Finally Crist gave them what they wanted: the opportunity to loose the wolves on Florida's remaining natural landscape. In return, his campaign warchest rapidly filled with millions of dollars. Now what?

Two terms of a Bush presidency and of Jeb Bush's governorship in Florida poured gasoline on the flames whipped up against regulation. That blaze gave cover for Wall Street lunatics to take over the asylum and foxes into henhouses everywhere, from toxics and pollution, to the environment and public health. Still, the size of government exploded. Even former Fed Chief Alan Greenspan now repudiates a career built on the myth that self-interest and the profit motive can better protect from market excess than regulations.

The Washington Times in June called Rubio, "the Cuban Newt Gingrich"; what he really is, is the Cuban Jeb Bush.

The US Senate primary race in Florida is about the thwarted competition for leadership of the GOP that began in 1994 when Jeb was being primed by Karl Rove and Grover Norquist Republicans for party leadership and perhaps a presidential run. But he unexpectedly tripped on a loss to former US Senator Lawton Chiles. That year, Gingrich, then US Congressman from Georgia, stepped into the breach and led a Republican minority to control of Congress through a mid-term election. Gingrich, as House Majority leader, pushed President Clinton and his agenda sharply rightward. Another Bush, George in Texas, was slotted against the Gingrich wing of the GOP.

Jeb was finally elected governor in 1998, but too late to be the candidate presidential run. Instead, Florida became the test-tube for GOP strategists; in particular, the components of the culture war, the war against the environment, and tactics like suppressing science and intimidating regulatory agencies that would come, also, to define the Bush White House.

The Jeb Bush election in 1998 was a masterful accomplishment for Miami-based production homebuilders who had already perfected the Miracle Gro formula for instant suburbs: Wall Street derivatives finance, home builders and their trade associations, cement manufacturers, mortgage brokers, and local zoning councils masquerading cheap platted subdivisions and condos as what the public wanted, all delivering housing products through hidden subsidies and the lazy eye of regulators. It was also the year that R. Allen Stanford, a big GOP contributor, started his multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme in Miami, shuffling bags of cash to offshore banking safe havens.

The Miami crew shows up on Rubio's early campaign finance reports, raising over $4 million: Caesar Alvarez, CEO of Greenberg, Traurig the Miami-based law firm specializing in the dark arts of local zoning for sprawl in farmland and wetlands (and whose attorneys then helped Stanford set up Miami shop). $2400, Alan Becker, Becker and Poliakoff, a Miami-based law firm with an extensive zoning and land use permitting practice, $2300, Ronald Book, $2400, Silvio Cardoso, former president of the Latin Builders Association, $2400, Santiago Echemendia, Tew and Cardenas, the law firm mostly closely associated with Jeb Bush, $1000, Herman Echevarria, a political consultant close to former Miami Dade mayor Alex Penelas and the Latin Builders, $2400, Ann Herberger, Bush family loyalist, $1400, Miami-Dade lobbyist Jorge Luis Lopez, $1000, Miami-Dade political consultants Marin and Son, total of $7200, Mestre family interests in Redland garbage and land development, total $12,200, Milton family interests, Miami’s major developer campaign contributors, total $4800, Miami sprawl developer Stanley Tate and family, $4800. Early contributions to Rubio from Florida Crystals/Big Sugar total $11,200: (Cantens, $1000, Dominicis, $2400, Oscar Hernandez, $1000, Albert Recio, $1000, Armando Tabernilla, $1000, Jose ‘Pepe’ Fanjul Sr., $2400, Jose Fanjul Jr., $2400). The Fanjul interests have taken on Crist for his initiatives-- against the grain of Jeb Bush environmentalism-- to acquire more land for restoring the Everglades; badly damaged by Big Sugar's pollution and other farming interests.

The Washington Times gushes: "Leading a strong conservative House majority, (Rubio) battled a moderate Republican Senate president as well as Mr. Crist. To prepare for this challenge, he surrounded himself with former Jeb Bush advisers. While Mr. Crist hosted global warming "summits" proposing big-government solutions to a debatable problem, Mr. Rubio wrote op-eds in the Miami Herald advocating free-market solutions to environmental concerns." But what are those "free market" solutions?

This is exactly the philosophic ground where Jeb rooted after his defeat in 1994. His drawing board quickly filled up with the catchy politics of free market environmentalism; a borderless world in which the profit principle and self interest did a better job than regulations in protecting the nation's air, water, and natural resources. In response, Florida Democrats began a full bore retreat, lacking any serious plan of their own; a flaw that dogged Gore in the 2000 presidential campaign in Florida and continues, unbroken, to this day. The enemy of progress: regulations containing suburban sprawl, especially at the margin of the Everglades where powerful campaign contributors agitate successfully for new zoning and state approval of massive new communities and related infrastructure. (For detail, read the 2009 excellent book by St. Pete Times writers Matthew Waite and Craig Pittman, "Paving Paradise: Florida's vanishing wetlands".)

To block out Marco Rubio, Charlie Crist sold Florida down the river. It is the shadow of Jeb Bush that chased him there. Will this story emerge in the GOP primary for US Senate? It is a story that will need to be told if Kendrick Meek, the Democratic candidate for US Senate, will be competitive in November, 2010. But can he, and, will he? Meek has spent time in that shadow, too. When he was state representative, Meek and a colleague, state representative Tony Hill, sat in the dark in the anteroom of Governor Jeb Bush's office all night long, with the TV cameras rolling bad news of the fuming governor until Poppy told his son to turn the lights back on. That is another story, for another day.



Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009
GOP at War with Itself in Florida Senate Race
By Michael Grunwald / Miami
While his Republican Party has been flailing and losing and dwindling to its base, Florida Governor Charlie Crist has remained extremely popular by governing from the middle. He has stocked his administration with Democrats, appointed a fairly liberal African-American Democrat to the state supreme court, expanded voting rights for felons, crusaded against global warming and enthusiastically supported President Obama's stimulus package. Crist's crossover appeal — along with his powerhouse skills as a fundraiser and campaigner — has made him a heavy favorite to join the Senate in 2010. To some observers, his success in the largest swing state could be a national model for a GOP in the wilderness, proof that the party still appeals to independent voters.

But those observers do not tend to be Republicans, much less the conservative partisans who tend to dominate closed Republican primaries. They've got a different vision for the party's future, and it looks more like Crist's 38-year-old Cuban-American primary challenger, Marco Rubio, a dynamic and telegenic ideologue who was the first minority speaker of the Florida house of representatives and is now described by fluttery admirers as an Obama of the right. He's a passionate defender of traditional Republican principles and wasn't part of the generation of Republican leaders who betrayed them. He speaks for the tea-party base, the limited-government purists who believe the GOP lost favor because its leaders were insufficiently rather than overly conservative. They see Crist as part of the problem, a big-spending, eco-radical, finger-in-the-wind Democrat-lite. (See pictures of GOP memorabilia.)

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), thrilled to recruit a proven statewide winner who can raise cash without help from Washington, endorsed Crist the day he entered the race. So did outgoing Senator Mel Martinez, who announced last week that he's stepping down early, allowing Crist to select a sympathetic caretaker — he says he won't name himself — to keep the seat warm. Early polls suggest that Crist would easily beat any Democrat — the favorite is Congressman Kendrick Meek — and that he's starting with a 30-point lead over his GOP challenger. Crist also raked in a state-record $4.3 million in the second quarter, swamping Rubio's $340,000; the media are speculating that Rubio will run for attorney general instead, and his campaign manager and chief fundraiser are already gone. (Read "Florida's Senate Seat: The [Premature] Martinez Opening.")

But Rubio insists he won't drop out, and those daunting polls suggest that the relatively few Republicans who know Rubio are quite likely to vote Rubio. Over the next 14 months, as Rubio introduces himself to the state, this race is likely to evolve from David and Goliath into a struggle for the party's soul, with a moderate populist who celebrated the stimulus with Obama at a Fort Myers rally and a conservative stalwart who opposes almost everything Obama has done. (Read "GOP Governors: Split over Obama's Stimulus Plan.")

The NRSC's heavy-handed decision to intervene in the primary has already prompted an anti-establishment backlash by the right-wing blogosphere, and endorsing Rubio is becoming a trendy way for Republicans like 2012 presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint and former House majority leader Dick Armey to demonstrate their conservative bona fides. Grass-roots Florida Republicans are also refusing to anoint Crist; Pasco County's GOP committee, which supported him against a conservative primary opponent in 2006, backed Rubio this time by 73-9 in a straw poll, and Lee County's Republican activists gave Crist a similar thumping. Rubio did even better in Highland County, whitewashing Crist 75-1.

Crist may be the most popular politician in Florida, but for the Florida GOP, that person would be Rubio's mentor, former governor Jeb Bush. His disdain for Crist's policies is an open secret in the Sunshine State, and his son has endorsed Rubio. Crist will still have a huge advantage in money and name recognition, but when choosing between a Republican and a Republican, Republicans usually pick the Republican. It's the same phenomenon that could doom party-switching Senator Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary; partisans don't often reward bipartisanship. "Crist has focused on the Arlen Specter wing of the Republican Party," says Palm Beach County GOP chairman Sid Dinerstein. "Rubio could be the future of a real Republican Party."

If you wanted to draw up a candidate for a party that needs to stop alienating young, Hispanic, Catholic and working-class voters and start inspiring its dispirited base of fiscal and social conservatives, Rubio would be it. He's the son of Cuban exiles, a bartender and a hotel maid who raised him to remember that faith matters, work pays and politics can stifle liberty in a big way. He's married to a former Miami Dolphins cheerleader, and he's got four young children. He's only 5 ft. 9 in. and 160 lb., with a sweet-faced earnestness that is unusual in politics; after he was elected to the state legislature from West Miami at age 29, a state official, mistaking Rubio for an intern, sent him to make copies. But he's also tenacious and ambitious, and with Bush's support, he rose to the speaker's chair in 2007; the ceremony was broadcast live in Cuba on Radio Marti. (Read TIME's cover story on Republicans in distress.)

Rubio quickly built a reputation as an idea guy; he held a series of "idea raisers" around Florida, and the conservative Regnery published his subsequent book, 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future. As speaker, he pushed dozens of those ideas through the house, but few of them made it past Crist's desk. For example, Rubio pushed for radical tax reforms that would have virtually eliminated property taxes; he had to settle for Crist's relatively modest cuts. Rubio also filed a lawsuit to try to stop Crist from expanding Indian gaming; the governor won that battle too.

Rubio is not a chest thumper or a fist banger, but in talks in June to a chamber of commerce in Palm Bay and the Christian Coalition in Miami, he electrified the crowds with eloquent arguments for tea-party principles. He attacked deficits in general and the stimulus in particular as Euro-socialist assaults on his kids. He clamored for term limits, states' rights and the abolition of the estate tax. He attacked government-run health care, warned that cap and trade would leave us with a "Third World economy," and noted that the words "separation of church and state" were nowhere in our founding documents. At times, he seemed to sense that he sounded extreme and offered clarifications like "I'm not saying Barack Obama is the same as Fidel Castro" and "I'm not an anarchist."

He isn't, but he is a savage critic of big government; he sees the crucial divide in politics as between those who trust the public sector to grow the economy and those who trust "the guy drawing up a business plan on the back of a napkin at Denny's." In an interview, he supported the privatization of Social Security, a constitutional amendment to restrain spending and the right of schools to teach intelligent design. He sees the stimulus as a defining issue, an inexcusable embrace of intergenerational theft that exposed Crist as a Specter-style Republican In Name Only. If the Republican Party is going to be indistinguishable from the Democratic Party, why bother having one? he asked.

Rubio rarely mentions Crist by name, but he has asked why the GOP would want a clone of Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, the last moderate Republicans left in the Senate. His favorite campaign theme is popularity vs. leadership, an unsubtle dig at Crist's over-60% approval ratings. He has repeatedly accused poll-driven Republican leaders of abandoning their principles and selling out the grass roots in pursuit of power, letting focus groups and Beltway pundits tell them what to do. "In normal times, that's annoying," Rubio said. "Right now, it's dangerous." (Read "Crist: Too Moderate for Florida Republicans.")

But while Rubio is clearly a fresh face, he's not really pushing fresh ideas. He constantly invokes Ronald Reagan and traditional values but seems uncomfortable with modern problems. His solution for the energy crisis is for government to butt out so that someone can invent a tiny battery that will power a whole city. The only specific critique he made of U.S. health care was that hospitals don't say how much their appendectomies cost, as if patients in acute abdominal pain are looking to comparison-shop. He tweeted that the situation in Iran would be different "if they had a 2nd amendment like ours."

That's a compelling message for the base. And as centrists have fled the party, the base has become increasingly dominant within the GOP, which is why Crist is now scrambling to the right; he surprised many supporters by opposing Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court and signing a developer-friendly bill to weaken growth-management laws. But it's not clear how much of the base will accept Crist's last-minute embrace. And if popular centrists like Crist can't win primaries, moderates will keep fleeing, the vicious cycle will continue, and the party will be in trouble. "The governor is a problem solver above all else," says Crist's political strategist, George LeMieux. "He's a national model of a Republican leader who serves all the people, not just his party."

In the modern Republican Party, that's a problem. Crist has one year to solve it.