The 2010 Republican Senate primary in Florida is quickly emerging as a new fault line within the Republican Party, between two key groups: The party establishment that values electability as they perceive it, versus the more hard-line conservative activists.
The primary pits moderate Gov. Charlie Crist against the more conservative former state House speaker Marco Rubio. A big issue will be that Crist broke from the party line on a key issue in the last few months, when he endorsed the stimulus bill and even appeared with President Obama to promote it.
Crist has a big lead in all the polls — both for the primary and in the general election in this big perennial swing state — and was actively recruited and then endorsed right out of the gate by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. As NRSC chairman Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has explained, Crist is a candidate who can not only win, but also save the party a lot of money that could now be spent elsewhere.
But while most of the GOP’s elected base has come out for Rubio, some conservatives aren’t following along. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who has actively advocated for an ideologically purer GOP, has endorsed Rubio. And Rubio has boasted of straw poll victories among Republican activists in Florida, showing there does exist a base of opposition to Crist and support for a stronger conservative.
Mike Huckabee has also come out for Rubio, returning the favor from when Rubio himself endorsed Huckabee during the 2008 primaries:
“Let’s show America that Republicans haven’t made up their minds yet about the Florida Senate race,” Huckabee said in a new Web video. “And when they do, they’re gonna choose the principled, conservative Republican candidate — and Marco Rubio will be on his way to the U.S. Senate.”
In an interview with The Hill, Huckabee blasted the national party for making its endorsement in the race. “The establishment Republicans have made this endorsement for the same reason that they’re in so much trouble,” said Huckabee. “They go out there and support stuff like TARP bills and stimulus packages, pork-barrel spending and huge debt, and they wring their hands and act like, ‘This is not good, but we don’t have a choice.'”
