GOP Senate challenger to Crist and Rubio

St. Petersburg Times ^ | 6/7/09

[steve-b]

Former New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith, now of Sarasota, has filed to run for Florida's open US senate seat: "I can no longer sit on the sidelines in the fight for the soul of the Republican party."

He called Charie Crist a "movement away from our core conservative values." And Marco Rubio? "Leadership is not about counting votes and making compromises. His experience as speaker of the House makes Rubio a good coalition builder. However, strong political leadership, not wheeling and dealing, will ignite out base and restore our party to power."

[Big_Monkey]

The only good thing about Smith running is he just might siphon some votes from Crist. I really don't think he have much effect, if any at all on Rubio's supporters.

[prismsinc]

Curious. Your profile says your from Virginia. You got a second pad down here?

[napscoordinator]

Sheesh. Christ thanks him. I guess it will be a split among conservatives for Rubio and Smith. It seems like Smith is more conservative from what he said in this article. I guess we need to reevaluate what we want to happen (Rubio). Some FREEPER assistance would be welcomed.

[americanophile]

Seems to me like this while split the conservative vote and hand Crist the nomination (which he's likely to get anyway), but I can't see this as helpful to conservatism, especially when Smith's opposition to Rubio seems ostensibly to be based on Rubio’s ‘wheeling and dealing’ style rather than ideological grounds, which means his real motivation is not ideological at all, he just wants to be a Senator again. I don't see personal ambition (Smith) as trumping complaints about political style (Rubio) in a fight for the ‘soul’ of the party; conversely it's a rather pathetic basis for a campaign.

[Big_Monkey]

"Seems to me like this while split the conservative vote and hand Crist the nomination

Or, do you think it will split the old, white guy vote. I'm not completely familiar with FL GOP politics, but it seems likely that the Latino/Cuban GOP block will vote for Rubio, no matter what.

Smith can call himself whatever he likes, but he's got a record he'll have to defend eventually. I just think he's more likely to draw voters from Crist, especially for people that give high priority to experience and age. These are not people who may have voted for Rubio in the first place, JMHO.

[Boiling Pots]

Don’t be so sure of that, Crist is pretty popular among south Fla repubs. Miami-Dade gave McCain huge margins in the primary, amongst the best in the state iirc.

[Recovering_Democrat]

Bob Smith jumped ship on the Republicans when he should’ve fought for them to be more conservative.

I don’t think I’ll vote for him.

[Nuc1]

Sabotage. Smith is OK but he had his time in the Senate and he is not a good campaigner. Give Rubio a shot. Step down Sen. Smith.

[mosesdapoet]

When is this primary? What is the date ? Drive me nuts when a primary fight gets posted and the talk is about the principals but the primary date doesn’t get posted.
http://www.theusmat.com/home.htm

[Nuc1]

Hope someone found that, 1/21/08 was the last Fla Pubbie primary. I would expect about 2 years from that date but I am not sure where to find it.

[mosesdapoet]

Try Florida’s Secretary of State. If you do, and its there please post it. Florida might (probably does) have a state board of election commissioners. In most states the 2010 primarys won’t be until next year Feb, March, or even later. However filing date for those primarys is usually late December. Some of them (Virginia, New Jersey) advance their primary dates (depending upon the party) to give their candidates a chance for public exposure and I believe have held their’s already.

The thing is if a FR is going to post promoting their choice in a primary they should include the primary date which they might know off hand. One reason is while they might be addressing members in their state others are reviewing the message who might want to either comment or support with a donation.

As far as Smith is concerned, as a former member of the Senate Club seems like he’s there to split the vote despite what he says.
http://www.theusmat.com/

[mosesdapoet]

Re Florida Primary date
Filing deadline...noon April 26 2010
Primary Aug 24 2010
Individual states election canandar dates links can be found in http://www.theusmat.com/home.htm