Straw polls show GOP base not with Crist

If the Republican U.S. Senate primary were up to people such as Andy Tuck, Gov. Charlie Crist might be in trouble.

Tuck is party chairman in rural, conservative Highlands County. In July, his party executive committee held a straw vote between Crist and his primary opponent, Marco Rubio.

Rubio won 75-1.

“I’m not saying (Crist) won’t win the primary, but it won’t be the cakewalk a lot of people say,” Tuck said. “He is not the conservative Republican he needs to be to win this race.”

Across Florida, mainly in conservative, rural areas but also some urban areas where Crist is stronger, Republican Party activists are voicing similar feelings.

Rubio has won party executive committee straw polls in seven counties, including Hernando County on Thursday night, plus a handful of Republican clubs.

State and national conservative activists and bloggers are voicing dissatisfaction with Crist for issues from backing President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan to picking Democrats for appointments.

Are these just noisy activists who don’t represent the broad mass of Republican voters?

Or could the governor face a significant challenge from within his own party as he seeks to move into the Senate?

In polls and fundraising, he is miles ahead of Rubio. A state Republican Party poll last week gave Crist a 67 percent job approval among Republican voters, party officials said.

Party activists – the kind voting for Rubio in the straw polls – “are a different group of people, more ideologically oriented, and they don’t always reflect the mainstream of the party,” said Darryl Paulson, a retired University of South Florida political scientist and a Republican who studies party history.

Nevertheless, Paulson noted, Crist has endured a string of bad news recently, culminating last week with the Hernando vote, a Rubio endorsement by U.S. Rep. Ginnie Brown-Waite of Brooksville, and attacks on Crist for past association with the controversial community organizing group ACORN.

“I’d be getting a little nervous if I was Charlie Crist,” said Paulson, who backed Crist in 2006 in his primary against Tom Gallagher.

Crist, Paulson said, “is extraordinarily popular, but not with the base of his party – with independents and moderate Republicans and Democrats. They either don’t vote in the primary or can’t.”

Potential bad news

Crist could see more bad news.

•Pinellas County Republicans will hold a straw poll, likely in December. Coming in Crist’s home county, it will have huge symbolic significance.

•In Volusia County, the party executive committee voted last month to censure Crist for choosing Democrats for appointive offices and also for supporting the president’s stimulus program.

•A censure move in Palm Beach County failed in a tie; party leaders staved it off by promising a straw vote in October.

•In Broward County, party leaders held off a straw vote by promising personal appearances by Crist and Rubio.

Broward Chairman Chip Lamarca said he thinks Crist would win a straw vote in his county, but Palm Beach Chairman Sid Dinerstein expects Rubio to win his easily.

Besides Hernando, Rubio has won straw polls in Bay, Jefferson, Gilchrist, Highlands, Lee and Pasco counties. The Hernando vote was 46-0.

Pasco’s 73-9 vote in June was a painful reversal – next door to Crist’s home county, it and Broward broke party rules to endorse Crist in his 2006 primary for governor against Gallagher. Party organizations normally stay neutral in primaries.

The organizations holding these votes are county Republican executive committees, made up of representatives from each precinct.

The largest, such as Hillsborough’s, may have 400 or more members who swear party loyalty oaths, attend monthly meetings and volunteer.

Importance downplayed

State Sen. Mike Fasano of New Port Richey, a Crist backer, downplayed their importance to Crist.

“I haven’t been to a Republican executive committee meeting in years, and many other elected Republicans in Pasco haven’t either,” he said. “The silent majority doesn’t go to party meetings or read blogs.”

State Party Chairman Jim Greer, a Crist ally, said regardless of the straw votes, polls such as last week’s consistently show Crist with strong support among likely GOP voters.

Asked to explain conservative dissatisfaction with Crist, he said, “There is a segment of the party that believes that there should be no flexibility whatsoever in their governing principles and that have very little taste for any bipartisanship.”

Paulson and GOP insiders noted that Crist has never depended heavily on the party structure.

Nonetheless, the governor has been moving right to counter the bad news.

He canceled his plans for a summit on climate change and dropped his opposition to Gulf oil drilling.

Greer, who is closely associated with Crist, has engaged in strident rhetoric attacking Obama on health insurance reform and other issues.

Rubio disagrees about the importance of the party activists.

“These are highly involved Republicans, who are definitely voting and will influence others on how to vote,” he said. “They will definitely work on campaigns.

“At a minimum, it shows that among those Republicans highly informed and highly active, we have significant support,” he said.

In a low-turnout election such as next year’s non-presidential year primary, Rubio said, those conservatives will matter.

His calculation: About a quarter of Florida’s 4 million Republicans will go to the polls on primary day, so 600,000 votes could win the Senate nomination.

“No one in the world can convince me that there aren’t 600,000 or 700,000 conservative Republicans in Florida,” he recently said in a speech in Hillsborough County. “No one in the world can convince me it costs $15 million to reach them.”