Where to begin… Okay, since I last left you all – the Governor has named George LeMieux, his former Chief-of-Staff as a Senatorial placeholder. The Tea Party movement has led an impassioned grassroots effort to pushback against the President Obama led Democrats and RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) alike. The head of the RPOF, Jim Greer (who garnered significant heat for backing Governor Crist against Speaker Rubio in the primary) has resigned. And lo and behold, Marco Rubio has considerably narrowed the polling (and financial) gap between Crist and Rubio in the Republican primary. That was a significant four months.
When I asked Speaker Rubio during a blogger conference call about how he planned on increasing his name identification throughout the state, he replied that he would travel around the state speaking to any and all groups and keep making his case. He’s clearly done that – but he’s also strategically targeted and received endorsements and/or accolades from Jim DeMint, Dick Armey, Club for Growth, Pat Buchanan (not an endorsement, but accolades for sure), and now Representative Paul Ryan. While ordinarily, getting an endorsement from a Republican House member from Wisconsin (my home state) does not send much by way of signals – the Ryan endorsement is huge. Ryan, now in his 6th term – and still is under 40 years of age, has followed a strong course of fiscal discipline and has risen to leadership positions on both the Budget and Ways and Means Committees in the House (both classic prestige committees). Some thought he might be able to defeat John Boehner for the House Leadership position – but he ultimately backed down. He is thought of, inside House Republican circles, as a smart, conscientious, consistent, and non-scary kind of guy (much like the image Speaker Rubio would love to have in the Senate). The Ryan endorsement, on its own, won’t mean a bunch of money (as say the Club for Growth endorsement did) – but it might open the door to a lot of the Republican establishment. Rubio may be moving from grassroots insurgency to going toe-to-toe against the one-time unassailable Governor. Suffice it to say, Governor Crist is "assailable" now.
