The Count Of Charlie Crist, Oh! Part 4

GOP gadfly David Frum forsees the Hoffmanization of the Florida Senate primary, but he still misses the problem.

The battle in Florida pits Gov. Charlie Crist against former Speaker of the Florida House Marco Rubio. Both men claim to be conservative, pro-life, tax cutters. On the issues, they would seem to agree far more than they disagree.
But on one issue they have disagreed passionately: President Obama's fiscal stimulus. Squeezed by his state's desperate fiscal condition, Crist endorsed and campaigned for the Obama stimulus. Inspired by his conservative ideology, Rubio opposed stimulus.

Now Rubio is the darling of conservatives nationwide. Just this week it was announced that he would keynote next year's annual CPAC conference in Washington. He has been profiled on the cover of National Review, endorsed by the Club for Growth, and feted by radio talk show hosts.

 (More after the jump...)

Crist, who as recently as 2008 topped the libertarian Cato Institute's list of favorite governors, has been consigned to pariah status. Here's the significance of the Florida contest: Every state except Vermont is legally required to balance its budget.

With revenues collapsing in 2008-2009, every Republican governor in the country eventually accepted federal funds. (The two most vociferous objectors -- Alaska's Sarah Palin and South Carolina's Mark Sanford -- were either physically or mentally checking out of their jobs.)

Are all these Republican leaders, including such outstanding figures as Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Haley Barbour of Mississippi, now disqualified for future races? But if every governor accepted stimulus dollars, few states were as hard hit by the 2008 economic crisis as Florida. State revenues collapsed by 11.5 percent between 2008 and 2009. Constitutionally obliged to balance the budget, Crist raised fees and cigarette taxes -- and still faced a huge budget gap.

Florida is a low-spending state. (New York, with an only slightly larger population, spends nearly twice as much.) Economies are not easily found. Constitutionally obliged to balance his budget, Crist welcomed President Obama's offer of federal stimulus dollars, and campaigned hard for passage of the emergency measure.

Now here's where Frum gets into trouble.  Crist raised taxes to balance the state budget and he has to take the stimulus money on top of that.  Every teabagger knows that what Crist should have done is cut spending on poor people and schools and roads.  That's socialism, you know.  And David Frum, being, well, David Frum, dances all around this point and seems baffled, because, well, he's David Frum and he's baffled.

But here's the most important unasked question raised by the enthusiasm for Rubio among Washington conservatives: What alternative policy should have been adopted back in the spring, when interest rates had been cut to almost zero and the economy was still collapsing? Are vague bromides about big government anything like an adequate response to the worst economic crisis experienced by any American under age 80?
The great free-market economist Milton Friedman argued that the right policy in the 1930s was a bank rescue -- but the bank bailouts (begun under a Republican president, lest we forget) are even more unpopular among conservatives than Obama's stimulus.

A few days ago, I was talking to a roomful of young conservatives about the crisis. All agreed in denouncing both the bank bailouts done under TARP and the stimulus. I asked: OK fine, what was the alternative?

There was a short pause, and then somebody laughed: "I guess it's lucky that we weren't in power."

Rubio has cast his lot with the Club For Teabaggers.  That alternative is to cut as many services for the poor and especially for Florida's immigrant population.  It's political suicide for Rubio, of course.  He is going to have to denounce Florida Latinos at some point because it's going to be expected of him.
Frum either won't see this coming, or refuses to, but it's as plain as day why the Teabaggers are backing Rubio.