Charlie Crist

That would be Charlie Crist:

Governor Charlie Crist and former state House Speaker Marco Rubio are now tied in the 2010 race for the Republican Senate nomination in Florida.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely GOP Primary voters finds Crist and Rubio each with 43% of the vote. Five percent (5%) prefer another candidate, and nine percent (9%) are undecided.

Jonathon Singer reminds us:

A month and a half ago, when the Club for Growth began setting its sights on Charlie Crist, I asked how long it would take Charlie Crist to pull a half or full Specter -- that is, pull out of the GOP primary and run either as an Independent or a Democrat. With numbers showing it decreasingly likely that the somewhat moderate Crist can make it out of a GOP primary, decision time might be nearer than we previously thought.

Singer could be onto something here. Watch as more moderate Republicans do the quick party switch and become Democrats, helping to pull the Democratic Party even further to the right. This will really leave Liberals feeling like they have no home, and that will be a very bad thing. I hate to put on my conspiracy hat, but perhaps this is a little known motive to the tea party movement.

Just reading Eric Erickson’s post on RedState trying to spin NY-23 into a great victory, I can’t help but notice his closing:

For all intents and purposes, NY-23 is a trial run for Florida. And in Florida, the conservative candidate is operating inside the GOP. If John Cornyn and the NRSC do not want to see Florida go the way of NY-23, they better stand down.

In other words they are going to teabag Charlie Crist next.

But that isn’t the only interesting thing in his post. For example:

First, the GOP now must recognize it will either lose without conservatives or will win with conservatives. In 2008, many conservatives sat home instead of voting for John McCain. Now, in NY-23, conservatives rallied and destroyed the Republican candidate the establishment chose.

So if they didn’t vote for John McCain, what about the primaries? John McCain was chosen by the Republican electorate to be their nominee.

(Source: Wikipedia)

That’s an awful lot of green, which represents states voting for McCain. How did he pull it out over the conservatives when they have such a “strong base”, or did the conservatives decide not to even vote in the primaries?

Why the conservatives are championing around NY-23 is because they did have an impact. Of course this was in an off year, and that was the only congressional race. What will they do next year with hundreds of races to worry about?

Another thing to consider is what we will never know. What would have happened if Scozzafava didn’t drop out? Perhaps she would have siphoned off enough votes from Owens that Hoffman could have ended up winning. Then perhaps people like Erick could really celebrate today.

The Republican Party is totally broken and this could lead to a huge divide in the party that will be so much fun to watch. The stimulus bill is causing this divide. While congressional GOP is fighting it, the Republican governors are pushing for it. As matter of fact the governors pushing for it is like a list of who’s who for 2012:

The 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, planned to meet in Washington this weekend with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other senators to press for her state's share of the package.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist worked the phones last week with members of his state's congressional delegation, including House Republicans. Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas, the Republican vice chairman of the National Governors Association, planned to be in Washington on Monday to urge the Senate to approve the plan.

Now let’s stop and think about this. How will the right wing blogs respond to such news? They have been blasting any Republican that showed any sign of support for the bill in the Senate, and working nonstop for its failure. But wait! Their golden child is going against them – Sarah Palin. So will they go after Palin now?

And that brings us to something even more interesting. If the stimulus bill “goes against conservatism” so much, like Republicans are claiming, then how can Palin still be considered a conservative if she is lobbying for the passage? Wow do they have a mess to work out.

The shorter version. Charlie Crist was originally vowing support to Rudy in the fall and then made the surprise announcement last night that he was endorsing McCain. This news has rattled the cages in the Rudy camp.:

The news is a definitive blow to Giuliani, and a sign of his fading prospects in the Sunshine State. Giuliani has gone out of his way on numerous occasions to praise Crist, and each time suggested he would be a viable vice presidential candidate.

It would probably be an appropriate time to mention an old proverb of "putting all your eggs in one basket", but I doubt that would have any effect on Rudy. We already knew he didn't listen to sound recommendations of other.