Crist in need of a miracle to beat rising Republican

MIAMI - In a park near Little Havana in Miami, a politician with a boyish grin named Marco Rubio, whose parents arrived from Cuba five decades ago, jabbed his pen at a sheet of paper to whoops from the small crowd.

The gesture was small, and apparently unassuming, but its consequences could be great.

And for another politician - one not present in that park - the stroke of Rubio's pen might as well have been a hammer driving nails into his palms.

That politician is Charlie Crist, the Governor of Florida, who until a year ago was one of the most popular and beloved figures in the Republican Party.

A moderate, he was seen by many as a possible vice-presidential candidate in 2008. Since then, he has been strung up in a political crucifixion about as swift and cruel as any you are likely to see in America.

Rubio, a former Speaker of the Florida legislature, is the man responsible, though Crist has performed a little self-flagellation of late.

The rally in the park was the moment the 38-year-old Cuban-American, hailed by some on the right as their answer to Barack Obama, signed the papers qualifying him to take on Crist in the primary elections to determine who will compete for the Republicans for an open seat in the United States Senate.

That someone as ideologically far from the party mainstream could end up being a threat to Crist's ambitions to transition from the governorship to become one of Florida's two US senators would have been unthinkable until not long ago.

Rubio, for example, recently declared his love for Guantanamo and his support for water-boarding.

But he is much more than a threat now. With demi-god status in the ranks of the Tea Party protest movement, Rubio would almost certainly crush Crist when Florida Republicans vote for their nominee in August.

A recent Rasmussen poll saw Crist with 28 per cent support versus 57 per cent for the former Speaker.

Not accustomed to being political toast, Crist faces a stark choice. The GOP's rules say he must decide this week whether to drop out altogether, stick with it, or run as an independent.

This is much more than a local squall.

The state has set itself up as the ground zero for what may be the most important political upheaval seen in America in a generation: the resurgence of right-wing, conservative zealots whose creed is small government, low taxation and zero bipartisan cooperation.

It is a phenomenon that has been manifested, in part, by the so-called Tea Party. Its sudden sprouting across the political landscape - a Gallup poll this week showed 28 per cent of Americans voicing support for it - has clearly sent a chill wind through the Democratic Party.

But it is also threatening to tear apart the Republican Party, undoing Ronald Reagan's notion of a "Big Tent" party open to all shades of conservatism.

Among those Republican figureheads who have endorsed Rubio and tipped Crist into the drink are the likes of Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani has never forgiven Crist for endorsing John McCain over him in 2008 for the presidential nomination.

Last week former Massachusetts Governor and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney also climbed aboard with Rubio, even though he himself was once the definition of a big tent Republican.

Not even McCain is standing by Crist, running for cover this week unable to find it in himself to say anything positive about his old friend.

What has the man done to deserve so sharp a cold shoulder? Even the National Republican Senatorial Committee, responsible for winning as many Senate seats as possible for the party, told Crist to get out of the way.

The simple answer is not unrelated to a road-building ceremony recently attended by Crist. It will be funded partly by President Obama's US$787 billion ($1.1 trillion) stimulus programme. Conservatives despise the stimulus dole-out. To them it symbolises big-spending and deficit growth.

Not only did Crist accept the money (in common with almost every other Governor) but when Obama came to Florida last year for a public rally, Crist embraced him. It was a moment that has done him a lot of damage.

But despite not having many friends left in the Republican party, polls have suggested that, when it comes to the general election in November, Crist would beat the likely Democratic nominee, Congressman Kendrick Meek, just as Rubio would.

But another poll, by Quinnipiac University in New York, suggested that were he to run as an independent he would beat both Rubio and Meek in what would, at that point, become a three-way race in November.

An independent run by Crist would at least provide a litmus test of where the party, and even the country, may be headed. When Florida Republicans find themselves alone in the booth, who will they choose? The pragmatist or the ideologue?

- INDEPENDENT