Marco Rubio is now ahead by double digits in the Florida Republican primary race. Rasmussen reports: “Former state House Speaker Marco Rubio has now jumped to a 12-point lead over Governor Charlie Crist in Florida’s Republican Primary race for the U.S. Senate. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely GOP Primary voters in the state finds Rubio leading Crist 49% to 37%. Three percent (3%) prefer another candidate, and 11% are undecided.”
This is a startling turnabout. In eight months, the race has swung approximately 50 points. (Charlie Crist was leading by more than 30 points last spring.) It is a lesson for the punditocracy about early poll numbers, which are generally a function of name recognition. It is also a reminder that with 24/7 news coverage, a talented candidate can rise quickly, and a listless one can plunge despite advantages of money, incumbency, and name ID.
This is also a cautionary tale: the conventional wisdom about what it takes to appeal to a broad cross-section of voters is often wrong. It is not necessarily the candidate with the mushiest brand of centrism or the one who has figured out how to split the difference on key issues who has such appeal. In this political environment, the successful candidate, as we saw with Scott Brown and Bob McDonnell, is rather one who can articulate a convincing message that appeals to the Center-Right segment of the electorate, present a dynamic and attractive image (let’s be candid, in politics appearance matters), and capture the anti-incumbent fervor that is very likely to continue as long as that sea of red ink and the high unemployment numbers create widespread unease among voters.
Rubio has not won the primary yet, and Crist may well put up a fight rather than pack it in, as many are speculating. But if Rubio cruises to an impressive win, he will join the ranks of new conservative rock stars that owe their emergence to one figure — Barack Obama. Without him and his increasingly toxic agenda, it is hard to imagine even a talented politician like Rubio rising so fast.
