Crist Says ‘Moderate’ Not A Dirty Word In First Debate With Rubio

Former state House Speaker Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Gov. Charlie Crist (R-FL)
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After months of fighting separate battles for the hearts and minds of Florida Republicans, Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist met on Fox News Sunday this morning, their first debate of the GOP primary. During 40 heated minutes moderated by FNS’ Chris Wallace, Crist showed that he won’t go quietly, despite the polls, and is willing now to run on the moderate record he tried to distance himself from as recently as October.

Crist came into the debate with the most to prove, having seen his once sure-thing candidacy devolve into an insurgent challenge against Rubio, who has become the poster boy for the most vocal Republicans on the right this year. Crist tried to tear down that image, claiming that Rubio is not the man conservatives think he is.

Rubio had a familiar response to Crist’s taunts: At least I’m not the kind of guy who hugs President Obama.

Policy-wise, the debate saw each man return to familiar themes: Crist said he was a pragmatist with the ability to get things done, while Rubio said he was a conservative purist who’ll stick to his ideological guns no matter what.

Crist, it seems, has decided to embrace the bipartisan record that Rubio and conservatives around the country have attacked him for. In the debate, Crist said he was proud of his support for President Obama’s stimulus package. The position something of a flip-flop-flip for Crist who, over the course of the campaign has supported the stimulus, then said he didn’t, and today said he would have voted for it if had been in the Senate back in 2009.

“I think it was the right thing to do at the time,” Crist said in the debate today. “I mean, you have to go back and remember what was happening in our economy — it was literally falling off a cliff.”

Rubio, not surprisingly, would have none of it.

“Governor, you just don’t get it,” he said. “The people who are watching this program [are] watching their country be fundamentally redefined this administration and this Congress. They’re taking us in a direction that is wrong, and they’re looking for people to stand up to this agenda and offer an alternative.”

Crist, meanwhile, said it was conservatives who “just don’t get it” when it comes to Rubio, their rising star. Crist pointed to allegations that Rubio misused a state GOP credit card to pay for personal expenses and worked as a lobbyist while in the state house.

“Speaker Rubio views public service as a way to enhance his personal enrichment,” Crist said. “And that’s just wrong.”

The theme has become the main focus of Crist’s campaign in recent days, with the governor going up up with negative ads against Rubio in the face of poll numbers that show Rubio taking a huge lead. The current TPM Poll Average for the primary race shows Rubio ahead by a margin of 57.4 to 29.1.

For his part, Rubio showed little willingness to embrace the center on anything, including policies and programs near and dear to the hearts of Floridians. Rubio called the Ryan budget “a great place to start” when it comes to reforming Medicare and Social Security.

Rubio suggested he would support raising the age when social security benefits kick in, as the Ryan budget calls for, and said any debate about the future of the program needs to include discussions about slashing cost of living increases in Social Security payments.

This time, it was Crist’s turn to balk.

“The idea of having a higher age [for benefits] really flies in the face of an awful lot of my fellow Floridians,” he said. Crist said he would focus eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse” in Medicare and Social Security if he is elected.

Both men agreed that the historic health care reform bill signed into law last week needs to be repealed, though Crist took pains to say there are parts of the bill he supports, such as the elimination of preexisting condition screening for insurance coverage.

After 40 minutes of debate moderated by FNS host Chris Wallace, neither man seemed to land the winning blow. Before the debate, Rubio’s campaign tried to downplay expectations, noting that today was Rubio’s first campaign debate ever and that Crist was a veteran of high-profile campaigns and the Sunday morning talk shows. The campaign needn’t have bothered — Rubio seemed unflappable against Crist’s attacks, parrying each blow with a return to his conservative message. The contrast was clear between the two men, which all told is probably a good thing for Rubio who has tried to make it clear from the outset that he is fundamentally separate from Crist’s form of politics.

Still, Crist appeared willing to allow the comparison. Though he spent time trying to showcase his own conservative bona fides, he also seemed to find his own footing in the debate. He looked confident running against Rubio’s conservative puritanism with a brand of Republican politics seen as moderate in 2010.

To that end, Crist said that Rubio won’t drive him from the party. Wallace asked Crist numerous times about rumors that Crist might jump ship from the GOP primary and run as an independent in the Senate race.

“I’m running as a Republican,” Crist said.

Rubio said the question itself defined the race. “Governor Crist says he’s running as a Reagan Republican,” Rubio scoffed. “I don’t recall Reagan ever being asked if he was running as an independent.”

“Reagan was a Democrat before he was a Republican,” Crist shot back, “So if you want to talk about Reagan, let’s talk about him.”

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