Moe got up the new television ad. We got it first.

We also got the first interview of Marco Rubio on the new ad. I just got off the phone with him.

The ad is the perfect example of how to do a contrast ad. It is not overtly negative, but it definitely shows real contrasts. Allegedly, Charlie Crist is going to go up hard this coming week with advertising. Rubio beating him to the punch with a positive contrast will probably have to send Crist scrambling.

When I asked Rubio about why he did this as his first ad he said, “This frames what the election is about. Charlie Crist seems to be obsessed with my back, but I’m worried about the trillions of dollars of debt we’re putting on our children’s backs. That’s what worries me.”

“He’s not going to stand up to Barack Obama. I will. Everything in my record shows that I will. Nothing in his record suggests he will.”

I deviated from talking about the ad to ask him about one concern being raised these days. Marco Rubio is becoming a conservative rockstar and everyone wants a piece of him. How exactly is he staying grounded. He said, “Real life keeps me grounded. Yesterday I had to go to the grocery shopping and took out the trash. Today I had to drop my kids off at school. Real life keeps me grounded.”

Lastly, I asked him about the credit card controversy. He said Crist is focused on Marco’s haircuts and Marco is focused on winning and going to Washington to help the country. Marco pointed out that he paid those credit card bills, the state party did not. He said, “It is kind of hypocritical for Charlie to attack me on my credit card purchases when Charlie’s chairman pillaged the party. I think we’re on the right track with new leadership there.”

And Florida is on the right track with Marco Rubio. Let’s send him some coin so he can keep this ad up.

Last night on Fox, Charlie Crist said Marco Rubio’s ~$100.00 bill at a Florida salon could have been for back waxing.

I don’t know if he was trying to make a racial statement, which would be keeping with what his campaign has done all along in trying to make Marco Rubio as hispanic as possible, or if he was gay baiting. I do know straight men know very little, if anything, about back waxing, which makes me wonder why that would come off the top of Charlie Crist’s head.

In any event, it was a ridiculous thing to say. His campaign is free falling in the polling. The only thing he has with which to attack Marco Rubio is a credit card statement Crist’s minions improperly took from the Florida GOP’s headquarters.

So let’s help Charlie out.

Here is some back wax at Amazon.com. Charlie Crist’s address is:

Office of Governor Charlie Crist
State of Florida
The Capitol
400 S. Monroe St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001
(850) 488-7146

Let’s send Charlie some back wax. And if he tries to use the stuff, he’ll at least experience the same pain the voters have been experiencing for the last four years. Full disclosure: this goes to RedState’s Amazon.com store, so we’ll get something for every one you send. But it doesn’t affect your price.

At a time the GOP is pushing the Democrats to scrap their health care plan and start over — a view shared by the majority of Americans — Charlie Crist says he’d keep the Democrats’ plan. Mind you, he can’t think of a part worth saving, but he says he’d keep it anyway and work to “improve” it.

Marco Rubio promptly sent out a press release on this saying:

“Once again, Charlie Crist has shown why Floridians can’t trust him to go to Washington and stand up to the misguided agenda of President Obama and Congressional Democrats. At a time when Americans are pushing back against the government takeover of health care and calling for a complete reset to this flawed bill, Charlie Crist says he would not scrap it. Even more problematic, he claims he would approach health care in the same way he handled the stimulus. Floridians know all too well the soaring debt and expansion of government that resulted from that misguided approach.

“Make no mistake, the current health care proposal is a deeply flawed plan that should be scrapped entirely in favor of a truly bipartisan approach that won’t sacrifice the things that have made our health system the best in the world.”

Good on Marco.

The speculation is building that Charlie Crist is going to leave the GOP.

Two highly placed and independent sources, speaking strictly on background, tell me that Gov. Charlie Crist is preparing to leave the Republican Party and run as an independent in the race for the U.S. Senate.

With Crist trailing Marco Rubio by 18 points in the latest polls, the Crist campaign has been in panic mode, launching attack after attack on the conservative Rubio.

Yesterday, the attacks reached a crescendo with the Crist campaign, and/or his disgraced Republican Party of Florida thug bootlickers, leaking Rubio’s credit card expenses from his time as speaker of the Florida House.

According to published reports, the former RPOF chair, the bovine bully-boy buffoon Jim Greer, spent more in a month than Rubio did in his entire two years as state House speaker. If all the Crist campaign has on Rubio is $53.49 at Winn-Dixie in Miami for “food” and a couple of plane tickets for his wife, then it’s game, set and match, as far as the Republican primary for Senate is concerned.

Here’s what will happen if Charlie Crist leaves the GOP. The DC-GOP Establishment crowd will attack RedState, Jim DeMint, and Marco Rubio for shrinking the GOP. Instead of pointing out that moderate Republicans are sore loser who don’t play well with conservatives, conservatives will be attacked for chasing Crist out of the party.

Crist might like a three-way primary with Meeks and Rubio, but he still has no path to victory. In fact, he’ll be wrestling with Meeks over the same voter pool as independents drift right toward Rubio.

There is growing speculation that Charlie Crist is going to run as a independent candidate in Florida as he continues sinking in the polls. Just a few weeks ago, Crist and Vice President Biden were caught having a private meal together in Miami. In addition, Crist has returned to embracing the Obama stimulus fraud. Either he’s going Democrat or he’s going independent.

Before he goes, however, Crist is determined to do everything possible to run a scorched earth campaign against Marco Rubio. The latest is beyond the pale. Crist has taken the private credit card records of the Republican Party of Florida and leaked them to the press.

The only records leaked, of course, were those of Marco Rubio. As the Speaker of the House in Florida, Rubio had a credit card with the Florida GOP. He used it to help get Republicans elected, though some of the charges were personal. Rubio reimbursed the Florida GOP for the personal expenses.

That hasn’t stopped Charlie Crist from misappropriating the records to smear Rubio. But for perspective, Charlie Crist’s hand picked Director of the GOP in Florida charged in one month what Rubio charged in two years.

Make a donation to Marco Rubio right now and teach Charlie Crist that the more he tries to smear Rubio, the more Rubio’s war chest will grow to combat the smears.

Remember, the NRSC threw its weight behind Crist because he was ahead in the polls and the NRSC did not want to have to spend a bunch of money. If Crist runs a scorched earth policy against Rubio, throwing every possible smear and lie at Rubio, the NRSC is going to have different arithmetic in Florida.

More details here.

Rasmussen has the political earthquake out today. Charlie Crist’s team was unavailable for comment as they were in the bathroom collectively unable to contain themselves.

Boom.

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.
The new numbers mark a stunning turnaround. Crist was the strong favorite when he first announced for the Senate seat, and Rubio was viewed as a long-shot challenger.

But folks, we cannot afford to get complacent. We can finish off Charlie Crist now. Pledge what you can to the Marco Rubio money bomb. Let’s ensure he is in a financial position to finish off Charlie Crist and clinch the Republican nomination.

Maybe this is why the media is reporting Charlie Crist had beakfast in Miami with Joe Biden the other day. Perhaps Crist is planning on jumping ship or taking a President appointment to lead up the relief effort to Haiti.

Just when you think Charlie Crist’s no good, very bad, awful several weeks has finished bottoming out and is prepared to rebound, the bottom falls out and he sinks even further.

Today, Crist is proclaiming himself a “McCain Republican”, stealing a talking point from Scott Brown in Massachusetts. I’ve got news for Charlie Crist — if we’re lucky, John McCain is going to get beaten by a conservative this year, just like Crist. And does he really want to further align himself with a man whose wife is now campaigning against Christians in Arizona and California, calling them “haters”?

Note that the quote originally circulated that Crist had called himself a “DeMint Republican.” When I asked Senator DeMint about that, he said, “That’s nice if the governor said that, but I’m a Marco Rubio Republican.”

If that’s not enough, consider Scott Rothstein, Charlie Crist’s number one fundraiser and donor, pled guilty today to federal charges connected to a multi-billion Ponzi scheme. Rothstein, in true Crist-supporter fashion, also supported Democrat Alex Sink for Governor.

The Miami Herald reported that Crist supporters themselves were alleging that Rothstein’s bundling could account anywhere from $500,000 to more than $1 million in Crist Campaign contributions.

After initially dragging his feet, under intense questioning from his editorial board buddies, Crist decided he would give back $76,250 from 35 employees of Rothstein’s firm. 

But an AP story this week said Crist only gave back $9,600.00. So the question is: is Charlie Crist going to follow through on his promise, is his fundraising total this quarter inflated, and is $76,000.00 really all the dirty Rothstein money?

Also, with Rothstein pleading guilty, there’s little doubt he cut a deal and will be singning like a canary.

Charlie Crist just keeps sinking lower and lower.

[UPDATED:] First Kos and now other liberal pundits are speculating that Charlie Crist should/might switch parties to run as a Democrat. I really don’t see that happening. I still suspect Crist is going to drop out. Frankly, Barack Obama should name him head of the American-Haitian Relief Effort. As Governor of Florida, he does have a ton of executive experience in dealing with natural disaster coordination. That skill set does not translate to the Senate, but would work well as an executive level appointee into the federal government while helping Obama’s “favorite Republican” save face.

A new poll shows Marco Rubio ahead of Charlie Crist for the first time in the race.

The Quinnipiac University poll has Rubio ahead by 3 and also beating Kendrick Meeks, the expected Democrat.

Likewise, Senator John Cornyn is now saying of Rubio, “His chances are better now than they’ve been at any point earlier.” Nonetheless, Cornyn is standing by his man Charlie Crist.

Cornyn said he’s sticking by endorsements already issued by the NRSC — including that of Gov. Charlie Crist, R-Fla., in his Senate bid.

But he noted that other candidates have explicitly said they don’t want the backing of national Republicans — something he said is “probably smart” in a year where anti-Washington fervor is running strong.

Of his endorsement of Crist, he said: “I made that commitment early on, and I’m sticking with it. But it’s an acknowledgement that the primary voters are going to be the ones to choose — not me, not anybody else.

Remember the upcoming money bomb. Make your pledge today and give on February 10th. Let’s send a political shockwave through the Republican establishment.

Poor Charlie. I guess when you get desperate you get careless.

The state-funded public TV outlet known as the Florida Channel, licensed to Florida State University, filed a copyright infringement complaint Thursday with YouTube. The offending video contained a snippet of (Marco) Rubio discussing a tax on carbon emissions and cap-and-trade legislation in a 2008 edition of Florida Face to Face, the station’s weekly newsmaker program.

WFSU general manager Patrick Keating said it is well-known among Florida candidates that a state law prohibits using its product for political purposes. “I’m just trying to protect our product and live up to the terms of our agreement with the Legislature,” Keating said. He emphasized that “we found it” on Crist’s website, and the decision to demand its removal was not prompted by a third party.

Ben Ginsberg, a Washington lawyer representing the Crist campaign, said WFSU’s action was an out-and-out case of censorship. “The Florida Channel has exerted its commercial interests and censored the exchange of information between two political candidates,” Ginsberg said. He said the video’s use should be allowed under the so-called “fair use” provision of U.S. copyright law.

SOURCE: St. Petersburg Times, The Buzz

Talking point: since the video was generated by WFSU using state funds, is it a public record, or did Florida’s current Governor break a state law?