There were several stories in the Florida political press last week about how the magic has gone out of Marco Rubio's insurgent campaign. To the extent that his meteoric rise isn't being written about as much, it's simply a matter of supply and demand. The Florida Republican Senate primary was perhaps the most interesting political race in the country for national reporters to follow over the past year, but that particular race ended at the end of April, when Governor Charlie Crist threw up his hands and confessed he has effectively lost the GOP Primary to his young Cuban-American upstart, and was going independent.
Therefore, the magic of that race went out the window. To the extent that the Senate race has captured any attention of late, it's been on the Democratic party side, with Jeff Greene coming in to give Kendrick Meek a run for his money of late.
Which is all a long setup to say that Rubio's new attack on Crist, a video from MSNBC's Morning Joe program that features analyst Chris Matthews predicting that Charlie will caucus with the Democrats in Washington if elected, doesn't really mean anything anymore. In fact, that might turn more rank and file D's on to supporting the Governor (not that they seem to need any encouragement, as Meek continues a distance third in the polls). Here's the video that the Rubio camp is peddling now:
Rubio's Web ad would hit harder if Crist were still trying to gather as many Republican votes as he can. Instead, what it does accurately show is how Crist said at one point that he would caucus "with the American people," as lame an answer as any politician has ever given, but actually hasn't said anything different (he hasn't been asked for awhile). It's Chris Matthews, in his infinite wisdom, predicting Sir Charles will hang with the Dems in D.C. if elected. Which is probably true.
But Marco's last line in the ad, "You just can't trust this guy," could be something that Meek or Jeff Greene will also say as the campaign heats up.
But so far, the majority of Florida voters polled don't seem to hold that against the guy.
This article appears in Jul 1-7, 2010.