I’m headed to Boston for work this morning, and good fortune has given me a few extra minutes before boarding my flight. So you lucky people get the benefit of my random post-Ames GOP nomination thoughts.

First, I’m not surprised that T-Paw dropped out. He was boring and completely boorish in his very personal attacks on Michele Bachmann during last week’s FOX News debate. Second, I am NOT a Bachmann supporter, but I’m pretty pissed off about how she is being treated by the press — liberal and conservative alike. Yes, Byron York — I’m lookin’ at you.

With regard to Bachmann, I see a major flame-out coming for her campaign. That’s all I’ll say about that…

I’m still a Herman Cain fan, I’ve given his campaign some of my hard-earned money, but I just don’t see him catching on as I hoped by now. I hope I’m wrong and he turns it on soon.

I’m told I should be flocking now behind Rick Perry. Sorry, I don’t see “it” yet. Someone please educate me.

In a week from today, I’ll be a South Carolina voter. So hopefully I’ll get a firsthand chance to meet my potential future President. I’m still holding out hope that Marco Rubio & Paul Ryan hear the desperate call of their fellow Americans to defeat Barack Milhous Obama.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Via the Corner.

As Democrats continue to demagogue the debt ceiling debate, we need to do things to see exactly where the president’s party is coming from.

First, we should bear in mind that when Congress considered the debt ceiling in 2006 with a Mr. George W. Bush was in the White House, not one single Senate Democrat (yes, you read that right), not one single Senate Democrat voted to raise the debt limit.  Guess having the federal government default is just jim-dandy (and also possibly peachy-keen) when a Republican is in the White House.

Oh, and, a Mr. B.H. Obama was then a member of the Senate’s Democratic caucus.

The second thing we need do is to ask a simple question. And for this question (via Gateway Pundit), I turn to the junior Senator from the Sunshine State, a Mr. M. Rubio:

OK, so where’s the plan? Where’s the president’s plan? I’ve never seen a piece of paper with the president’s name on it that’s his plan to solve this crisis. I’ve seen press conferences. I’ve seen lectures that he’s given to the Congress. I’ve seen these press avails where the camera comes in and takes a bunch of pictures. I haven’t seen a plan. Where is the president’s plan?“

Oh, and remember that 36-hour deadline the president was giving House Republicans to come up with a plan, a deadline which they wisely did not meet? Why did the president not come up with his own plan in that timeframe?

He was asking Republicans to do something that he himself refused to do. Guess that’s what you call leading from behind?

Can you imagine the reaction if a Republican leader said a Latino Democrat shouldn’t forget who he is, lecturing him that “he has to understand who he is and who he represents” and then expressing the hope that he’ll “do a better job than he has been.”  Well, here we’ve got the Senate Democratic leader, a man who just won reelection not with an uplifting message , but instead by trashing his opponent, lecturing Marco Rubio, a man who won election with a much more upbeat appeal, on how to do his job:

Meanwhile Marco Rubio enjoys stellar ratings among, as Harry Reid might put it, the people he represents:

Marco Rubio is the more popular of Florida’s two Senators less than three months into his first term in office. Senator Rubio’s job approval rating stands at 61%, with only 30% of likely voters giving him a negative review. Just 48% of Democrats said they disapproved of the Republican Senator Rubio, while 83% of Republicans graded Rubio favorably.

At the same time, 25% of the American people have a favorable rating of Reid, with more than twice that number, 51%, having an unfavorable view.  That is, more Americans have an unfavorable view of Harry Reid than Florida Democrats disapprove of Marco Rubio.

That makes two of us….

From HotAir.com:

Rush Limbaugh offered that off-hand endorsement of Marco Rubio after Florida’s newest Senator announced that he would oppose any more short-term spending bills in Congress.

Meanwhile, Rubio has a few other ideas as well, notably to cut off the EPA’s efforts to expand its regulatory reach. His office announced earlier today that Rubio would attach an amendment to “every major bill” in the Senate to cut off funding for EPA enforcement of “job-destroying numeric nutrients regulations,” as well as rescind authority for spending of any unused stimulus funding.

One could argue that Rubio is too “inexperienced” to be a serious Presidential contender.  Well, I don’t recall the current Oval Office occupant sticking in any job longer than two years.  Rubio has him up on that by a mile.  And, Rubio was the Speaker of the House in the Florida Legislature.  Those two facts are just off the top of my head.

I’ve been wondering when Rubio would begin to flex his leadership muscles in the Senate.  Mark this week as the beginning of the rise of Marco Rubio.

[RELATED:  House Budget Chmn. Paul Ryan explains how America is screwed by our debt problem.]

-Bruce (GayPatriot) 

Thanks to Jim Hoft for reminding us that “Senator-Elect Marco Rubio [R-Fla] delivered this week’s GOP Weekly Address.”  That fine and fetching Floridian reminded us of the greatness of America and the tasks ahead of the GOP:

This election the American people said enough is enough. That message was loud and clear. We Republicans would be mistaken if we misread these results as simply an embrace of the Republican party. This Election is a second chance. A second chance for Republicans to be what we said we were going to be.

America is the single greatest nation on earth, a place without equal in the history of all mankind. A place built on free enterprise, where the employee can become the employer. Where small businesses are started every day in a spare bedroom and where someone like me, the son of a bartender and a maid, can become a United States Senator.

I know about the unique exceptionalism of our country. Not because I read about it in a book, I’ve seen it through my own eyes. You see, I was raised in a community of exiles, by people who lost their country, people who once had dreams like we do today, but had to come to a foreign shore to find them.

Emphasis added.  Jim emphasized different things than I did.  There is so much in this short address to enjoy and appreciate — and consider.  It is indeed a second chance fro the GOP to stand true to the principles of Ronald Reagan — and 1994.

Republicans can’t just pay lip service to the ideas of small government and individual liberty; they have to act on them.  Do hope Republicans take heed to what this fine — and fetching —  Floridian is saying:

. . . he will deliver the keynote address at the GOP’s 2012 convention which will, after all, be held in the state he will soon represent in the United States Senate.

(Just a prediction.)

Charlie Crist’s gambit is not paying off.

The latest FoxNews poll shows Republican Marco Rubio opening up a “16-point lead over” the outgoing Florida governor.  Democrat Kendrick Meek trails Crist by a much smaller margin, only 6 points.

This continues a pattern begun in August, with Rubio surging, Crist tumbling and Meek languishing:

Via Pollster.

Last month, the Washington Examiner’s John McCormack charted Crist’s “Crist’s most plausible path to victory“:

The weekend before the the November 2 election, Crist is trailing Rubio by single digits, while Meek is trailing by double digits–say it’s Rubio 39 percent, Crist 34 percent, and Meek 25 percent. At that point, some Meek supporters logically start moving to Crist as the only one who can beat Rubio…

With Crist now trailing by double digits, that path seems less plausible.  Let me offer an alternative.  With some signs Florida Democrats are coming home to Meek, that Democrat should increase his share of the vote as Crist fades.  Crist, seeing his fortunes diminish, could (perhaps with a wink and a nod from national Democrats) drop out at the last minute and endorse Meek, hoping to secure a cabinet (or ambassadorial) appointment from the president.

Still, that may not be enough to propel Meek to victory as the former Republican’s name would still be on the ballot.

If Crist continues his current trajectory, this race will no longer be a contest between Rubio and Crist, but between Rubio and Meek.  And that does give the Democrats a slim chance of flipping the seat, but with a real Democrat and not an opportunistic ex-Republican.

. . . and those Democrats had a fiercely contested primary, with one man dumping millions in the race while his opponent earned the endorsement of the incumbent Democratic President and a campaign visit from the immediate past Democratic president.

With 1,053,447 votes against two nuisance candidates, Marco Rubio bested the combined vote total of Kendrick Meek (513,648) and Jeff Greene (280,326) or 793,974. And even if we add in the Democratic nuisance candidates for a total of 897,015 and exclude the Republican, Rubio still wins.

In a two-candidate race, Rubio wins with 54%.

(H/t for the idea:  Jim Geraghty.)

Charlie Crist could not be reached for comment, but we could expect him to take the 192,539 votes won by the Republican nuisance candidate and how many of defeated Democrat Jeff Greene?

I don’t much care for opportunists.  When New York Mayor MIchael Bloomberg left the GOP and became an independent, I wrote:

Except for the people who are deliberately mean and hateful, seeking to harm others — and those who are inconsiderate, indifferent to the feelings of others, I find opportunists to be the most irritating sort of human being. They don’t seem to believe in anything but their own advancement.

With his announcement yesterday, Florida Governor Charlie Crist showed himself to be just an individual, putting himself above all else.  His erstwhile rival for the GOP nomination (and current rival for the U.S. Senate) Marco Rubio nailed it when he told ABC’s Terry Moran that the switch

. . . has nothing to do with ideas or principles or ideology; it’s about, quite frankly, political convenience. It’s about someone who wants to continue his career in politics and doesn’t believe he can do that this year within the Republican Party.

Former Florida Jeb Bush agrees, “This decision is not about policy or principles.  It is about what he believes is in his political self-interest.“

And I don’t think his opportunism is going to pay off.  With video clips showing the Governor saying he has no intention of leaving the GOP, declaring  to support his then-party’s nominee, he’s going to be hard pressed to justify his move as a matter of principle.  Republican policy has shifted significantly in the past three weeks.

If anyone’s changed, it’s Charlie, suddenly vetoing bills he once supported, calling a political system “broken” that once nurtured him.  (According to Daniel Foster that was “the one billionth time an American political candidate has used that particular phrase to justify the pursuit of a personal ambition.“) (more…)

“Nobody,” Jim Geraghty writes in this morning’s Jolt, “switches parties when they’re a winner.”

The outgoing Florida governor’s decision to bolt the GOP, as Nick put it yesterday, has everything to do with ambition and little to do with the best interests of the Sunshine State.  Oh, well, except in the mind of Charlie Crist who somehow believes that he and he alone has the capacity to represent Florida in the United States Senate.

The one-time Republican has already, tin cup in hand, reached out for support the one of the most partisan members of this Administration. Rahm Emanuel didn’t pick up.

Expect him to lose the endorsements of prominent Republicans who have previously backed him.  Expect previously fence-sitting Republicans in the state, like the popular former Governor (and future presidential contender?) Jeb Bush to come out for Marcio Rubio.  Crist’s fundraising was already slowing down.  It may well start drying up.  And some Republicans who supported the candidate when he was making a bid for the GOP nomination will be asking for their money back.

It didn’t have to come to this; Jim Geraghty looks at all the mistakes this once-popular politician made in his bid for the U.S. Senate.

With most Florida Republicans likely to rally around Rubio, it’s hard to see where Crist will draw his support. To be sure, he may still have a reservoir of good will among certain Sunshine State voters.  But, will they stay with him if Marco  Rubio surges in the general election matchups as he has in the Republican primary?   Charlie’s only real path to victory is to push the Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek out of the race — or somehow make him irrelevant and pick up the slack among center-left voters.

A year ago, Charlie Crist was in many ways the future of the GOP, a handsome man with a winning smile and a knack for getting things done, elected on the Republican ticket in a swing state in a Democratic year.  Unless he manages to eke out a victory this fall (a possibility, to be sure, but one I wouldn’t bet on), a year hence, he’ll be little more than a footnote in Florida history, a one-term governor with little prospect for higher office or national prominence.

UPDATE:  Peter Wehner doesn’t mince words when commenting on Crist’s decision:

People like Charlie Crist, consumed by personal ambition and devoid of scruples about breaking their word, make the public cynical about politics. Crist will, I suspect, pay a high price for what he has done, since his motivations are so transparent and unprincipled.

Yeeehaw.