Two weeks before voters choose Florida’s next U.S. Senator, the three leading contenders squared-off Tuesday in a free-swinging statewide television debate – with Democrat Kendrick Meek and independent Charlie Crist trying to topple Republican Marco Rubio from his frontrunner status.
Rubio, who most polls show holds a double-digit lead over Crist — with Meek a distant third — tried to stay above the scrap. But he was frequently pin-balled between the two contenders, with Crist fiercest on the attack.
“There’s an extreme right candidate in this race – Mr. Rubio,” Crist said at the close of the hourlong debate. “He’s proud of it. He says he’s a Tea Party guy and he wears it as a badge of honor. But I don’t agree with those values.”
Meek also occasionally launched a double-barreled attack, going after after Rubio and Crist for opposing President Obama’s health care overhaul and for supporting a continuation of tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration which favor wealthier Americans and corporations. Meek blistered Rubio for opposing federal stimulus spending that “kept us from going into a depression.”
But Meek directed his harshest attack at Crist – whose independent candidacy and evolving stand on issues is peeling a sizable portion of Democratic voters away from the party’s nominee. At a midpoint in the debate, Meek and Crist traded fire over Crist’s changing stance on offshore oil drilling and his shifting relationship with Obama.
“When it comes down to standing up for Floridians, it’s really mindboggling to me how, governor, you can stand there and start throwing out accusations saying ‘oh, Obamacare,’ when you were walking on the beach together” after the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, Meek said.
Crist wheeled, “When we were on the beach we were protecting Florida, and that’s what we talked about.”
Meek bore in, trying to tar Crist as an opportunist. “When you were with Sarah Palin a couple of years ago, you said, `Drill, baby, drill,” Meek said, drawing a Crist denial.
“You were clapping,” Meek pounced.
“I supported my friend, John McCain,” Crist concluded.
With $32.6 million in candidate spending, the three-way Florida race has emerged as the nation’s costliest Senate contest. Along with getting help from independent spending groups backing many Republican contenders this year, Rubio has spent $12.8 million, Crist, $12.5 million and Meek $7 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
While Rubio holds a commanding lead in most polls, a survey by Suffolk University this week gave the Republican nominee only an 8 percentage-point edge – suggesting the race may be tightening as it lumbers into the homestretch. Rubio, though, who Tuesday began running a softer-hued TV spot that suggests he may sense the election is within his grasp, sought to show he was ready to answer voters’ frustrations.
“The road that Washington has us on – a road that my opponents both support – is the wrong direction,” Rubio said. “It is a road that will rob us of our exceptionalism. But if we are going to send people to Washington, D.C., to stand up to that…we’re going to leave our children with a better future. I’m ready.”
In their third debate televised statewide – this one sponsored by the Florida Press Association and Leadership Florida, and held at Nova Southeastern University in Broward County – the candidates also covered familiar ground. As in earlier debates, they sparred over immigration, Social Security and health-care spending – with none of the candidates breaking new ground or letting their positions be cast as favoring dramatic change.
Crist pledged to leave Social Security and Medicare untouched – at one point, eyeing the camera and vowing, “I will protect and preserve Social Security as we know it today. I’m a fiscal conservative. I slashed the budget more than any other governor in this state – by $7.4 billion. And we didn’t hurt seniors.”
He also described himself as a “live and let live guy,” and warned that Rubio would work to overturn abortion rights if elected to the U.S. Senate.
Rubio, who has been attacked by Crist for wanting to reduce seniors’ benefits and raise the retirement age, ignored the governor’s attack on his social positions, but said his approach to spending would only change the Social Security system for future beneficiaries, not those already drawing benefits or those about to retire.
Meek said eliminating tax breaks for wealthy Americans and reducing corporate incentives is part of his larger plan to “weed out the waste” in entitlement programs and make them solvent again. “The next senator must be a protector,” Meek said.
On immigration, Rubio tried to loosen his bonds with the Tea Party movement, despite his support for an Arizona-style law that gives more authority to local law enforcement and proclaiming English as the nation’s official language.
“There’s no one running in America who is more pro-legal immigration than me,” Rubio said. “I just don’t think America can be the only country in the world that doesn’t enforce our immigration laws.”
Crist, however, attempted to chip away at Rubio’s frontrunner status by also accusing him of being ready to turn into a Washington insider — after having freely used a Florida Republican Party credit card and selling his home in 2007 at a high-price to the mother of a politically influential chiropractor lobbying him on a lucrative insurance issue.
Rubio denied any wrongdoing. But Crist said he provided a clear contrast.
“I’m the same guy I’ve always been,” Crist said. “I’m Charlie Crist. I’m a fiscal conservative.”
By John Kennedy
The News Service of Florida
