Plague Infects Florida Republicans

ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

MERCUTIO: [Dying] No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o' both your houses! 'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! A braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.
-- Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Sc. 1

The internecine war within the Florida Republican Party keeps spreading its ruin like the plague. A political plague. As Chris Weigant wrote yesterday, it looks very much as if a "fratricidal battle" has begun.

The House of Marco Rubio two months ago accused the House of Crist of being source for leaks about Rubio's lavish charge-card spending. Now, the investigation into the accounts of Rubio and other top Florida Republicans looks as if it is infecting those who live in the House of Charlie Crist, as well.

We're with Mercutio: a plague on all their houses.

American Express: 'Don't Leave for Prison Without It'

"Political parties... are only allowed to spend money on political activities, such as fundraising, running campaigns and registering voters."

-- Miami Herald, April 21, 2010

The big news in Florida today is that the IRS, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the North District of Florida in Tallahassee, and the FBI are investigating top officials of the Florida Republican Party, including the leading Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Marco Rubio, "to determine whether they misused their party credit cards for personal expenses." The Miami Herald reports that the probe could lead to criminal charges of tax evasion and making false statements under oath.

The report of an investigation should come as no surprise. The scandalous misuse of Republican Party credit cards has been in the state's headlines for months. According to the St. Petersburg Times, at least $1.8 million was rung up in American Express charges to party credit cards "in 2008 alone."

Rubio himself spent more than $100,000 in the two-year period from November, 2006 to November 2008. Among other items he billed as G.O.P. "political" expenses were:

• $765 at Apple's online store for "computer supplies."
• $25.76 from Everglades Lumber for "supplies."
• $53.49 at Winn-Dixie in Miami for "food."
• $68.33 at Happy Wine in Miami for "beverages'' and "meal."
• $78.10 for two purchases at Farm Stores groceries in suburban Miami.
• $412 at All Fusion Electronics, a music equipment store in Miami, for "supplies."

The Miami Herald adds today:

The charges included repairs to the family minivan, grocery bills, plane tickets for his wife, and purchases from retailers ranging from a wine store near his home to Apple's on-line store. Rubio also charged the party for dozens of meals during the annual lawmaking session in Tallahassee, even though he received taxpayer subsidies for his meals.
* * *
Rubio acknowledged in February that he double-billed state taxpayers and the party for several plane flights from South Florida to Tallahassee. He said he would pay the party back about for eight flights totaling about $3,000, but the party said Tuesday it had not received a check.

Other news reports have described how top Republicans in Florida paid with Other People's Plastic hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of claimed "political" expenses such as jewelry and sporting goods. Among others, the FBI is investigating disgraced former Speaker of the State House of Representatives Ray Sansom, whose family traveled to England on the G.O.P.'s AmEx ticket, racking up "nearly $40,000 at a London hotel, and more than $3,600 in sightseeing expenses."

"Political activities" all, we are sure.

In addition to Rubio and Sansom, the St. Pete Times reports "ex-state party chairman Jim Greer and ex-party executive director Delmar Johnson" are being investigated "to determine whether they misused their party credit cards for personal expenses... ."

All of which will make absolutely no difference in the upcoming Florida primary or general election. As John Cole puts it:

There is simply no greater achievement in the modern conservative movement than becoming a martyr. Accused by the 'Obama IRS' and the “lamestream media” of wrongdoing? They’ll rally around [Rubio] even if it turns out he was using the card to pay for gay sex with aborted fetuses in a bondage-themed club. He doesn’t have to explain anything - all he has to do is deny it and play the victim, and let the “principled conservatives” in the wingnut wurlitzer and the blogosphere do the rest.

Charlie Crist's Deadline

'The absence of party affiliation is no guarantee of the absence of ugly politicking. If anything, the reverse is true.'

The Pensacola News Journal on Sunday editorially urged Florida governor Charlie Crist to run for Florida's vacant U.S. Senate seat as an independent. Noting that he faces an April 30 deadline to withdraw from the G.O.P. primary the newspaper argues "for the good of the state, shouldn't Crist and [Marco] Rubio have a chance to face off in November — the state's political Super Bowl date — instead of in preseason?"

In Florida's closed-primary system, registered Democrats and independent voters do not have the chance to vote for or against Crist. Yet Crist and Rubio are the political heavyweights, and they should meet in the finals.

Once again, weak sports metaphors are invoked to distort political reality by making it resemble a horse race (or a football game, or a boxing match) without regard to the long-term policy consequences. The PNJ's proposal is tantamount to advocating the defeat of Democratic senatorial candidate Kendrick Meek even before he's had a chance to introduce himself to the voters.

As the News Journal must know, recent polls suggest Crist has a realistic chance of winning the general election only if he draws a boatload of votes from the Democratic candidate. This is because it looks like he'll get almost none from Republicans:

Even in a three-way match-up with Crist running as an independent, Meek comes in second with 25% of the vote. Rubio leads with 45% support, while Crist earns 22%.

To be sure, other journalists also are applauding the idea. Take Broward County's Sun Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo, for example. He hauls the PNJ's "it-would-be- good- for- Florida-voters" theme one step farther by imagining a Crist win in November:

If he wins as an independent, Crist could find himself the most powerful senator in the country.

Democrats now have a 57-41 edge over Republicans in the Senate, and there are two independents who align with the Democrats, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

With 36 Senate seats up for grabs in November, Democrats and Republicans could end up virtually deadlocked for the majority.

Could you imagine if there was a 49-48 split and Crist were one of three independents?

Anything Florida wanted, Florida would get.

Almost immediately, however, Mayo ruins his own fantasy by impliedly having 'independent' U.S. Senator Crist sell off the sand on Pensacola Beach to the oil corporations:

How about this idea: Our junior senator could broker a deal where all Florida homeowners get affordable windstorm coverage through national catastrophe insurance. In exchange, we allow expanded oil drilling off Florida's shores.

Mayo's wet dream offers an unintentional caution about the naive fantasy of an "independent" politician. The absence of party affiliation is no guarantee of the absence of ugly politicking. If anything, the reverse is true. A senator without affiliation with one of the two major parties is like Edward Everett Hale's "Man Without a Country." Joe Lieberman's deceitful run as an "Independent" is a useful template. It has made him, to be charitable, "a little crazy."

The reality is that every "independent" in the U.S. Senate is impelled by the circumstance of Senate rules and traditions to caucus with one or the other of the two major parties. Even if Crist were to win the senate race as an Independent, he'd have to huddle either with the Republican or the Democratic Party. As with Lieberman, that means either being completely marginalized (much as has happened to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a more reliable Democratic vote than most other Democratic senators) or forever living on the edge of betraying one party by flirting with the other.

That might be entertaining. It might sell more newspapers. But if Crist takes advice from the likes of Michael Mayo and the Pensacola News Journal, it would be terrible for the nation as well as Pensacola Beach.

Democratic senate candidate Kendrick Meek is a fine legislator and a courageous man. However, as Stuart Rothenberg says, he was "handed the Democratic nomination without a fight largely because Crist looked invincible when the race was taking shape."

He's been doing better than expected in the fund raising derby. He even polls fairly well, only 6 points behind, in a 2-man race against Rubio -- and most Floridians hardly know him yet. Even in today's over-heated partisan atmosphere he has a legitimate chance to win.

A Crist independent candidacy, however, would doom Meek's chances. Meek and Crist would split the sane vote while Rubio cleans up among the chronically angry old farts, demented paranoids, racists, and those who want to protect Wall Street bankers so they can continue schtupping main street America with toxic investments and paying themselves outrageous bonuses.

In the loopy political atmosphere we see all around us today, the only honest thing for Charlie Crist to do is to think inside the box -- one or the other box. Either run as the moderate Republican he's always been -- or switch parties and run for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.
minor edit 4-19 am

Dept. of Further Amplification

4-19 pm

Marcos Moulitsas, writing as Kos, has his "fingers crossed," hoping for Crist to make "an independent bid." Presumably, for different reasons than those expressed by the News Journal.