The Political Whore

By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor

Charlie Crist leads over Marco Rubio 54 percent-23 percent (measuring registered Republicans) for the 2010 Senate seat in Florida according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll. The other 23 percent of voters are undecided or giving other answers.

Rubio has a lot of ground to cover. Only 14 percent of those polled had a favorable opinion of Rubio and 73 percent said they did not know enough about Rubio to have an opinion of him. On the other hand, 60 percent of those polled have a favorable opinion of Crist.

This is not all that surprising as we usually explain who leads a race by name recognition and campaign fundraising, and Crist has plenty of capital in both. Rubio has plenty of experience fundraising also but it may be hard for him to compete with Crist. However, there is an interesting part of this race measured in the Quinnipiac poll that could provide Rubio with a chance to truly challenge Crist.

The poll asked Republicans what’s more important when voting in the primary – the candidates experience or the candidates’ ideas?  Only 36 percent said experience and 56 percent said ideas.  The influence of ideas grew for men where 64 percent of men said that ideas are more important compared to 28 percent of men that said experience was.

This could be read optimistically for Rubio as it challenges the traditional wisdom that name and money win all while asserting the role of ideas in politics.  Rather than out-fundraising Crist and challenging his experience, Rubio might find it more effective to challenge Crist on ideas.

This could potentially be an exciting race if that happens.

Posted in Florida Politics | Leave a comment