The St. Petersburg Times reports:
Republican Party activists in his own county of Pinellas, many of whom have been campaigning alongside Crist for years, on Monday overwhelmingly declared that they prefer Marco Rubio for U.S. Senate. The 106-54 “straw poll” vote is officially meaningless, but it’s a symbolic blow for Crist. After all, many of the people lining up to cast secret ballots against Crist on Monday night at Tucson’s restaurant were the party activists who know him best.
The standard operating procedure for a candidate when he loses one of these straw polls is to declare it meaningless and say he didn’t try all that hard. But here Crist did try, because he knows the perception is out there that his campaign has hit the skids. (“Before Monday night’s nonbinding vote, Crist supporters worked phones to line up support and sent mailers to executive committee members touting Crist’s conservative principles.”) But not to worry, say the Crist people. They’ve got this wired. As for all those activists, a Crist insider sniffs, “These tea party people don’t really grasp consensus politics.”
Rather, it seems that it’s Crist’s people who don’t grasp — or can’t relate to — the conservative grassroots activists:
Longtime Crist supporter Margie Milford, recalling how Crist keeps phoning her lately to check on the health of her ailing husband, lamented that the governor is being buffeted by angry forces in the GOP.
“It’s a group of people, they’re dissatisfied, they’re angry. They don’t know who to take it out on, so they’re taking it out on Charlie Crist,” she said. “When all is said and done, I think they’ll realize he has them in his heart.”
Actually, they do know whom to take it out on — Obama, his agenda, and the go-alongism that Crist seemed to represent. What’s so striking is the degree to which Crist’s campaign seems to be apart from and the victim of, rather than the beneficiary of, the excitement and enthusiasm sweeping the GOP ranks. He’s managed to get on the wrong side of those people most likely to turn out in a primary and who will be vital to securing a win in November. First by policy misstep (embracing the stimulus plan) and now in the disdainful tone permeating his campaign, Crist is communicating that he really doesn’t understand the populist, anti- big-government fervor that’s now the dominate ethos in the Republican party.
Can he reverse course and figure out how to appeal to both GOP-establishment types and those activists for whom his supporters express such scorn? He’ll have to, or Marco Rubio will be the upset nominee and the new darling of those Tea Party activists.
