Florida's Crist: GOP leaders line up

by Peter Wallsten

With the Republican Party diminished in power and embroiled in debate over broadening its ideology or adhering to core ideals, top GOP officials today took the unusual step of inserting themselves into a party primary - picking a moderate U.S. Senate candidate over a conservative in Florida.

In endorsing Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the GOP group that sets strategy for Senate races, sided with a popular candidate best positioned to keep a Senate seat in Republican hands as the minority party tries to avoid falling below the critical number of 40 senators needed to block legislation.

But in doing so, the top Republican officials also are aligning themselves with a candidate who has broken with party orthodoxy on environmental and voting rights issues and even appeared with President Barack Obama to support the economic stimulus plan being lambasted by conservatives.

The move could be risky.

Just two weeks ago, another high-profile moderate who backed the stimulus, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, abandoned the Republican Party because he decided that he could not survive a primary challenge from a conservative.

And not long after the McConnell and Cornyn announcements today, Crist's primary opponent, former state House speaker Marco Rubio, released a video showing the Florida governor alongside the Democratic president.

"Our primary will offer Republicans a front-row seat to a debate about the future of the Republican Party here in Florida and across the nation," Rubio said. "My campaign will offer GOP voters a clear alternative to the direction some want to take our party. Let the debate begin."

Crist's candidacy strikes a contrast to the strategy of many top Republicans who have called for ideological purity as the party tries to map a comeback.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said the party should not moderate its views, and in a television interview over the weekend said that he would "go with Rush Limbaugh" as a true Republican over former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a moderate who last year endorsed Obama's candidacy.

Limbaugh, the conservative talk show host, has been sharply critical of Republicans who do not adhere to core conservatism, recently saying that the party's 2008 presidential nominee, John McCain, should leave the GOP.

Other Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, have formed a new organization to study a revival of conservatism.

In the Florida Senate race, Bush is widely believed to prefer Rubio over Crist.