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.