{"id":261669,"date":"2010-02-01T18:57:27","date_gmt":"2010-02-01T23:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com\/?p=10148"},"modified":"2010-02-01T18:57:27","modified_gmt":"2010-02-01T23:57:27","slug":"rubio-takes-double-digit-lead-over-crist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/261669","title":{"rendered":"Rubio Takes Double Digit lead over Crist"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI, Fla-According to a new Rasmussen telephone poll<\/a> among likely Florida GOP primary voters, former state Speaker Marco Rubio now has a double-digit lead over Gov. Charlie Crist in the race to be the Republican nominee for the open Florida Senate seat. Rubio now leads 49% to Crist’s 37%, with 11 % undecided. Both have a double-digit lead over likely general election opponent, Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek.<\/p>\n

It is an amazing swing from last\u00a0Spring when Crist held nearly a thirty point lead over Rubio in the Sunshine state, and Rubio had even been encouraged by party members to drop out and run for a different office. In December, Rasmussen released a survey showing the two virtually tied, and last week Quinnipiac University<\/a> had Rubio leading by a few points for the first time.<\/p>\n

At a press conference today on how his adminstration has\u00a0aided Haiti\u2019s earthquake survivors, Crist responded to the new poll findings.<\/p>\n

“You know there is a time to talk about politics and there is a time to talk about people,and what we\u2019re doing today is talking about people, about their needs, their wants and desires and how government is supposed to provide for them,” Crist said in response to a reporter\u2019s question. “I am not really concerned about the poll numbers, I am concerned about the people.”<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Rubio announced that his campaign plans to mark the one year anniversary of Crist\u2019s attendance at a pro-stimulus package rally with President Obama by attempting to raise $787, 000 in the next 10 days. The 2009\u00a0Ft. Myers\u00a0event helped showcase a chink in Crist\u2019s\u00a0once-impentrable armor: his\u00a0open acceptance of federal stimulus money in the era of Tea Party backlash. The\u00a0move, considered a\u00a0misstep of financial temerity\u00a0by\u00a0grass-root conservative activists,\u00a0helped fuel Rubio\u2019s rise on the right. Crist has argued it was a necessary step to buoy a sinking state economy.<\/p>\n

During today’s call with conservative\u00a0bloggers that occured before the poll’s release, Rubio said that because of parallels to his campaign and Scott Brown\u2019s in Massachusetts, he expected the “mainstream media\u2019” to go after his surging campaign in the aftermath of Brown\u2019s surprising win\u00a0last month\u00a0.<\/p>\n

“When we were just a blip on the screen, we were an interesting curiosity, but now that we’re in the lead, they’re going to be very aggressive,” Rubio said. “The mainstream media agrees with this administration and its view on the role of government, and they’re going to be very aggressive against anyone who challenges that. “<\/p>\n

Rubio aide Todd Harris then took a direct jab at their opponent during the call,\u00a0telling the conservatives,\u00a0the\u00a0mainstream media was “in love with Charlie Crist”.Harris,a veteran campaign operative,\u00a0has been one of the\u00a0chief \u00a0architects behind Rubio’s\u00a0booming trajectory. A Florida columnist had pronounced Crist\u00a0 “The Comeback Kid”<\/a> on Sunday, prior to the poll’s results.<\/p>\n

Crist supporters argue that there is still a political eternity between now and the August election day.<\/p>\n

“This campaign will go through a lot of different stages,” Crist Communication Director, Andrea Saul,told Fox News Tampa<\/a> .”We are at a stage now where it’s very important for voters to learn more about Speaker Rubio’s record. We are confident that at the end of the day, voters will choose Charlie Crist.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MIAMI, Fla-According to a new Rasmussen telephone poll among likely Florida GOP primary voters, former state Speaker Marco Rubio now has a double-digit lead over Gov. Charlie Crist in the race to be the Republican nominee for the open Florida Senate seat. Rubio now leads 49% to Crist’s 37%, with 11 % undecided. Both have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5040,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5040"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}