Posted on 02/27/2010 4:13:55 PM PST by Brandonmark
Amid revelations about how Republican U.S. Senate front-runner Marco Rubio wielded his Florida GOP credit card as state House speaker (not exactly conservatively), it seems some of his most vocal conservative supporters are plenty forgiving.
Rubio agreed to reimburse the state party about $3,000 after the St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald bureau revealed that while House speaker he double-billed the state party and Florida taxpayers for eight flights between Miami and Tallahassee.
Club for Growth spokesman Michael Connolly: "Sounds like Marco is doing the right thing reimbursing taxpayers for the $3,000. Hopefully Gov. Crist can do the same thing about that $787 billion he owes us."
RedState's Erick Erickson: "It doesn't give me any pause in supporting him. Life happens and with it mistakes. Considering the executive director of the party (Delmar Johnson) spent as much in a month as Rubio did in multiple years, I don't think it is a big issue. I can't wait for the open records acts on Charlie Crist's international travel and minibar raids. Rubio's expenditures are peanuts in comparison."
An exception was Tampa GOP consultant and conservative pundit Chris Ingram, a fierce Crist critic who was unimpressed with Rubio attacking Crist allies for leaking credit card records.
"Who cares if the records were leaked? That doesn't matter," Ingram said. "You got your hand caught in the cookie jar, and you should be taking ownership and responsibility."
(Excerpt) Read more at digg.com ...
How do you double bill a plane ticket on a credit card?
This article doesn’t pass the smell test.
I think I’m going to let Mr. Rubio use my personal credit card.
Mr. Crist, it’s cash only for you.
Easy, his staff billed to one card and he billed to another ... When you have a busy office things get screwed up and errors don’t get caught.
Hey isn’t an even better question, how do you forget to tell the IRS and the House about 100s of thousands of dollars in other investments, like Charlie Rangel did.
Or for that matter how do you explain Turbo tax cheat Geitner.
It bothers me. On the other hand, the party has given us a choice between Rubio and Crist, and the two party system will give us a choice between the winner of that contest and a liberal Democrat.
I am not going to vote for Crist, and I am not going to vote for a Democrat. If I have to hold my nose and vote for Rubio in order to avoid doing that, then that’s what I’m going to do.
To me, it shows more that our political system is a failure than anything else. And the best way to control a failed political system is to make it smaller. The smaller it is, the less the crooks can steal from us.
Between Rubio and Crist, I would bet that Rubio will more likely vote for smaller government.
Pro’ly use the cc to charge the ticket and then file an expense report asking for reimbursement. Intentional or staff error? If it was only for one type of charge could well be a procedural glitch especially if different staffers were involved. $3K over how many years? That’s a long way away from Rangel-class issues.
SP Times.
The article at the link does not link to the alleged story about double billing so maybe there is a story and maybe there isn’t.
It then goes into a bit about how Kendrick Meek is really a centrist and not a liberal.
I’d like to see all of Crist’s credit card info.
Say it ain’t so, Marco.
Crist worked with the Democrats to cook this one up, hoping to eliminate his primary rival from contention. It seems to have been a fairly small sum, and easy enough to count as an honest mistake.
I can’t find independent evidence of the comments by Erickson or Connolly either which the article also does not link.
My congressman got hit with a $210,000 fine for campaign finance violations immediately after his election. (basically it amounted to money laundering among democrats)
Marco Rubio says double-billing of nearly $3,000 for flights was ‘mistake’
U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio admitted Friday that he double-billed state taxpayers and the Republican Party of Florida for eight plane tickets when he was speaker of the Florida House.
Adam D. Smith, G.O.P. has 157 friends including Mitt Romney on Myspace.
Thanks, Brandonmark. Appreciate it.
Dan Quayle was a smart guy with a record of accomplishment in both private and public sectors. JOEBIDEN is an IQ point away from free rides to the grocery store, but you'd would never now it by the press coverage.
WOW! Did the fine come out of his own pocket?
I’m guessing stimulus money probably paid the fine.
http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2009/2/25/95012/4337
Only in politics can you break the law to get a job, get caught, and still get to keep the job.
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