Crist Is No Conservative

I’ve got to disagree with Andrew Pavelyev: Charlie Crist’s election to the Senate would be a dramatic setback for the conservative movement. Quite simply, the Florida governor and Senate candidate doesn’t have a conservative bone in his body. Although popular, Crist has proven himself a lousy Florida governor. He pushed through an insurance reform bill that put his state in direct competition with private insurers mostly for the benefit of wealthy residents who live on the beach.  At the same time, he crippled the state’s finances by capping property taxes in a way that helps wealthier residents at the expense of the poor (income taxes are already banned under the constitution.) The state has property insurance debts that could exceed $30 billion and no practical way of paying them. One serious storm and the state might well have to take a trip to bankruptcy court. While imposing massive liabilities on the state Treasury, Crist has paid little attention to the craft of governing. He zero-funded a cheap, effective program that reduced insurance subsidies by helping poorer residents retrofit their homes, cut spending on children’s health care, and seems to have done everything he can to send the state’s so-so public schools down the disastrous state-run course that California has set for its public schools. For all his talk about global warming he’s yet to do anything effective in Florida and, by subsidizing coastal construction through government-backed property insurance, will increase whatever damage results from rising sea levels and potentially stronger storms. (Major green groups like the National Wildlife Foundation and Sierra Club oppose the sort of government insurance subsidies Crist favors.) On a variety of other issues, Crist seems likely to take a position well to the port side of the Republican caucus. He supported Obama’s stimulus package (quite possibly hoping that some of the money could eventually come to bail Florida out of the insurance mess he has created), wants federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, and opposes offshore oil drilling. In short, it’s difficult to see what the Republican Party really gains from having Crist in the Senate.  And, as someone used to being in charge -- he was attorney general before becoming governor -- Crist might well grow restless. Given his close relationship with President Obama, it seems quite possible he would simply switch parties. With his own state trending strongly Democratic, in fact, doing so might well provide the path to victory in a 2016 election if he proves victorious in 2010. Marco Rubio isn’t a perfect candidate. In fact, he initially supported Crist’s misbegotten property insurance plan (only two members of the legislature opposed it.) But he’ll add diversity to a party that desperately needs to hold on to some of the Latino vote, holds genuine conservative values, and wouldn’t ever switch parties. Crist may well pick up a few more swing voters than Rubio would but he’ll do nothing to energize the Republican base and, in a state where the Democratic Party seems ascendant, an energized base is absolutely key. Besides an “R” next to his name on the ballot, nothing Crist has done suggests an alignment with the goals or positions of the Republican Party. Marco Rubio is the better choice.