The Count Of Charlie Crist, Oh!

Dumas puns aside, the GOP Senate primary in Florida between Gov. Charlie Crist and State Speaker Marco Rubio is shaping up to be indicative of the greater GOP battle between the Wingnut base and the remaining moderates. Each candidate has become the poster face for their respective sides in the battle, Crist representing the chamber of commerce, country club moderates and Rubio representing the fire-breathing Wingnut contingent.

The problem is this shouldn't even be a battle according to Crist's people, but buzz about Rubio is rising fast.

Polling released last week showed a significant deterioration in Crist’s once sky-high approval ratings, with an InsiderAdvantage survey showing his job performance rating dipping below 50 percent.

Meanwhile, Florida political insiders and the state media buzzed about an unreleased recent Chamber of Commerce poll said to show a closer-than-expected primary race.

For his part, Rubio is tapping into conservative grass-roots antipathy toward Crist. He has won nearly a dozen county straw polls across the state — often by landslide margins. In August, he won a Florida Federation of College Republicans poll, and in September, he won several straw polls conducted by local GOP women’s clubs.

Last week, Rubio defeated Crist in a decisive 90-17 vote in Palm Beach County.

“It’s created an appearance of momentum that has gotten people enthusiastic about him,” said Jason Roe, a Republican strategist with Florida ties. “Crist started the campaign with an air of inevitability, and Marco has chipped way at that.”

Rubio’s fundraising has also taken off — he announced earlier this month that his campaign had raised nearly $1 million in the third quarter, a significant boost over his $346,000 second-quarter performance. While Crist, a prolific fundraiser, took in considerably more — $2.4 million — Rubio’s haul was surprising given the expectations of many that his fundraising would dry up in the face of his uphill battle.

“There is definitely a buzz going on,” said Ana Navarro, a longtime Florida Republican fundraiser who is working for Rubio. “There has been a sea change.”

“It’s going to be a race. It’s going to be a dogfight,” said Mike Hanna, a veteran Republican strategist in the state. “It’s going down to the wire and will be a close race.”

Indeed, that Florida Chamber of Commerce poll has Rubio down 44-30%, which is actually far closer than it was just a couple months ago. It's worth revisiting Dave Weigel's take from May on the Crist-Rubio Senate race.

The coming Florida primary is shaping up to be the most brutal of the ideological primaries. Rubio, a 39-year-old Cuban-American who served for eight years in the Florida House — the last two years as speaker — entered the Senate race on May 5. Early on, he said that anyone who voted with the Senate Republican moderates “might as well be a Democrat.” In March, Rubio quietly signed up Ann Herberger, a prolific fundraiser for Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, to stockpile cash for a campaign. In April, he came to Washington to talk with the Club for Growth, the fiscal conservative PAC that until April was led by Pat Toomey, and one that welcomed Crist into the race with pointed criticism. This, and an aggressive media strategy that has resulted in warm interviews with Fox News and National Review, has allowed Rubio to build buzz with conservative activists who fully expect Crist to lead the first rounds of polls.

“It will be closer than it looks right now,” said Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida. “It’s Crist’s race to lose but there is a pent-up animus against him from mainstream Republican voters who don’t like the fact that he’s cozied up to President Obama.”

Rubio is laying the groundwork for that by patiently laying out a litany of conservative complaints against Crist — his environmentalism, his appointment of a pro-choice judge, and above all his support for the economic stimulus package. “Charlie Crist has proven to have more confidence in the ability of government to grow the economy than I have and than Republicans should have,” Rubio told National Review. While Crist supported the president, Rubio attended an anti-spending Tea Party and has produced a video that mashes up his speech from the event with interviews he conducted with other protesters — a video that has been played for attendees of Grover Norquist’s Wednesday meetings of Washington conservatives.

“Rubio went to a Tea Party,” said Javier Manjarres, chairman of the south Florida-based Conservative Republican Alliance. “Where was Crist? He didn’t go to any Tea Parties. To stand with Obama like he did was a slap in the face of Republicans.”

In some quarters of Florida’s Republican base, there is lingering bitterness over Crist’s olive branches to Democrats — he once said he was “open” to reparations for slavery — and the state GOP’s decisions during the 2008 election. While Obama carried Florida, the party lost the House seats of scandalized Republican incumbents Rep. Tom Feeney and Rep. Ric Keller while winning the seat of disgraced Democratic Rep. Tim Mahoney. Republicans who worked on other races, without much party support, aren’t won over by Crist or his endorsement from state party chairman Jim Greer.

As goes Charlie Crist, so goes the GOP in 2010. If Republicans insist on putting up Teabaggers like Rubio nationwide, they're in serious trouble in the general elections. The country will slap them down in 2010 just like 2006 and 2008. And even if Rubio doesn't win, Crist will have to tack hard to the right in order to satisfy the base, and that I think will depress the base even more should Rubio come close and lose.

In other words, if Crist wins, the GOP base will stay home. If Rubio wins, the Dem base will be motivated to stop him. Either way, it's not looking good for the GOP in a number of purple states.

Obama Derangement Syndrome is not going to fix the country's problems, and yet that's all the GOP will have to run on in 2010.

[UPDATE 2:35 PM] How many House Republicans are going to be in big trouble down the road with the Winger base for taking the stimulus money every single one of them voted against? This goes for Senate Republicans and GOP Governors too.

I'm not worried about the Democrats losing in 2010.