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The Club For Growth officially backed Marco Rubio in the Florida Senate race.

(CNN) – The conservative Club For Growth formally endorsed former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio Monday over the Republican Party's choice of current Gov. Charlie Crist in that state's Senate primary race, setting the stage for what again could be a bitter intra-party battle within the GOP.

"Marco Rubio is the real deal, one of the brightest young stars in American politics today, and a proven champion of economic liberty," Club President Chris Chocola said in a statement. "He is a dynamic spokesman for the principles of limited government and economic freedom, and he will make a fantastic senator."

The endorsement is not surprising, especially after The group launched a television ad last week attacking Crist for claiming recently on CNN he did not endorse President Obama's stimulus measure back in February.  In fact, Crist did attend a rally with the president during which he hailed the measure as one that will "reignit[e] the economy."

"Charlie Crist has repeatedly joined with big government liberals on major economic issues facing America today, from taxes to spending to cap-and-trade," Chocola said. "He represents the wrong direction for our economy and our nation."

The endorsement comes weeks after The Club spent upwards of $1 million in a special New York congressional election on behalf of a third-party conservative over the Republican Party-backed candidate. When the Democrat ultimately won what had been a longtime reliably Republican district, those conservatives faced fire from some in the GOP for language that seemed to push moderates away.

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A socially conservative PAC announced Thursday that it is endorsing Marco Rubio's 2010 Senate bid.

Washington (CNN) – The FRC Action PAC, the Family Research Council's political action committee, announced Thursday that it's endorsing former Florida state legislator Marco Rubio's 2010 Senate bid.

"Marco Rubio has been a true friend of the family and the culture of life as a state legislator in Florida," Tony Perkins, FRC Action president, said in a statement announcing the endorsement. "Rep. Rubio's many years of advocacy on behalf of pro-family causes will serve him well in the Senate. FRC Action PAC believes that Marco Rubio will be a true advocate for the issues that best uphold and strengthen families. We are proud to support his candidacy."

Rubio is set to face off against Florida Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida's GOP Senate primary. After conservative pressure forced moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava out of the race in New York's 23rd congressional district, many of the same activists - who have made similar complaints about Crist's candidacy - pledged to repeat the performance.
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The Club For Growth is taking aim at Crist in a new ad.

(CNN) – Fresh off its considerable impact in New York's special congressional race, the Club for Growth is wading into the Republican Senate primary in Florida with a new ad criticizing Gov. Charlie Crist's initial support of President Obama's stimulus package.

"Since Charlie Crist helped pass Barack Obama's spending program, nearly two hundred thousand Floridians have lost their jobs," the ad's narrator states as video is shown of Crist and Obama at a rally in support of the package last February. "Unemployment is the highest in decades. Personal income's down. And the deficit in Washington is three times larger."

The conservative political action committee, which spent upwards of $1 million helping to derail a Republican candidate in New York who many conservatives felt was too liberal in her social and fiscal policies, has yet to determine the specific amount of the Florida ad buy.

But Club For Growth spokesman Mike Connolly said the group was moved to quickly produce the 30-second spot after Crist told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Wednesday on The Situation Room that he never "endorsed" the stimulus plan.

"We wanted to correct the record," Connolly said.

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Crist told CNN Wednesday he never endorsed the president's stimulus measure.

(CNN) – Florida Gov. Charlie Crist tells CNN he never endorsed President Obama's $787 billion stimulus measure, in what appears to be the latest effort by the Florida Republican to distance himself from the president as he seeks his party's Senate nomination.

"I didn't endorse it. I didn't even have a vote on the darned thing," Crist told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an interview Wednesday on The Situation Room. "But I understood that it was going to pass and I wanted to be able to utilize it for the benefit of my fellow Floridians."

The comments came a day after former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, Crist's conservative challenger for the GOP nomination, launched a Web site featuring a photograph of the governor appearing with President Obama at a Florida rally for the stimulus measure last February.

Text under the image reads, "Get the picture? Donate now to stand up for conservative principles."

Crist was one of only a handful of Republican governors to publicly extend some support to the president's $787 billion stimulus package – a move that rankled some conservatives in his home state and across the country.

Watch:  Crist extends support for stimulus measure

In the interview with CNN, Crist called the move a "pragmatic" one given that the bill was certain to pass and his state stood to benefit from federal dollars.

"That was back in February, less than a month after the president was sworn into office, the first time he visits our state," Crist said. "And I was pragmatic, I think, about what we needed to do. Everybody knew the bill was going to pass."

"I, like all other Republican governors, utilized that money for the benefit of the people in my state. And that's what a pragmatic conservative does - a CEO, if you will, of a state does that," Crist also said.

But Crist appeared considerably more enthusiastic about the spending measure at the Florida rally on February 10 when he was introducing the president.

"It's getting harder every day, and we know that it's important that we pass this stimulus package," he said then with the president by his side. "It's important that we do so to help education, to help our infrastructure, and to help healthcare for those who need it most - the most vulnerable."

"This is not about partisan politics, this is about rising above that, helping America, and reigniting our economy," Crist also said then. (video below)

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Rubio wants this image to resonate with conservative voters.

(CNN) - Pictures can speak a thousand words.

At least that's what former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio hopes.

The conservative Republican battling Gov. Charlie Crist for the GOP Senate nomination in that state has unveiled a new Web site showing a single full-page image of Crist with President Obama at a rally for the president's stimulus package last February.

"Get the picture?" text under the image reads. "Donate now to stand up for conservative principles."

Crist was one of only a handful of Republican governors to extend some support to the president's $787 billion stimulus package - a move that rankled some conservatives in his home state and across the country.

Since the Senate primary race began last May, Rubio has become the favorite of conservative Republicans while national party leaders are openly supporting Crist. Recent polls suggest Crist holds a 15 point lead over Rubio, a margin that is down from more than 30 points last summer.

The picture of Crist and Obama could resonate with conservatives in a similar way an image of Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman embracing President Bush resonated with liberal Democrats in 2006. Lieberman lost his Democratic primary to a liberal challenger that year, though won the general election as an independent.

Follow Alex Mooney on Twitter @awmooneycnn

Gov. Charlie Crist is running for Senate in Florida.

(CNN) – In February, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist embraced President Obama when he came to the Sunshine State to campaign for passage of his $787 billion stimulus bill.

This week, the president is back in Florida, speaking to an audience of military personnel in Jacksonville and making a stop in DeSoto County (along with raising money for Democrats in Miami). But Crist - now seeking the Republican Senate nomination in his state - is keeping his distance.

His reason? According to the Palm Beach Post, the governor apparently didn't know Obama was in his state.

Asked by a reporter Tuesday why he didn't join the president in Jacksonville yesterday, Crist responded: "First I've known of it." Crist also said, "I didn't know his itinerary. That's all."

Eric Issac, the governor's spokeswoman, told CNN that Crist knew the president was coming to Florida, but wasn't aware of his specific city-by-city itinerary. "The governor didn't say he didn't know the president was going to be in the state," she said.

The Palm Beach Post pointed out that Crist was eager to appear with Obama earlier this year, when the president's approval ratings in the state were north of 60 percent and before Crist was facing a Republican primary against conservative up-and-comer Marco Rubio. The governor canceled a scheduled Cabinet meeting to join the president on a stage on Fort Myers in February, but he declined to do the same thing on Tuesday as the president makes another Florida stop in DeSoto County.

Isaac said Crist simply has "a full schedule" today.

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Crist's primary lead over Rubio shrinking.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The battle for Florida Republican voters appears to be heating up.

A new Quinnipiac University poll suggests that Gov. Charlie Christ's wide lead over former state house speaker Marco Rubio in the GOP senate primary has been cut in half.

According to the survey, which was released Wednesday morning, Crist leads Rubio 50 percent to 35 percent, down from 55 percent to 26 percent in August.

Earlier this week Rubio won the endorsement of a major out-of-state conservative, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who said in a statement that Rubio "will stand up for America's taxpayers, not with President Obama and dangerous big government spending."

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(CNN) - Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is standing by his recent prediction that President Obama may be headed for a massive electoral defeat similar to that which President Carter faced in 1980.

[It] may happen again," Crist told CNN's John Roberts on American Morning Tuesday. "What I think has occurred is that in 1976 the people wanted a change…I think the same thing sort of happened last year in America."

"What change we got may not necessarily be the change that America wants," Crist continued. "What I mean by that is that every day you get up and the government has taken over some other industry, auto industry or banks or whatever it might be. I think that the change that's coming about is a little too fast, little too furious."

Plagued by a sputtering economy, an energy crisis, and the Iran hostage ciris, Carter won just six states in 1980 - the fewest by a major-party presidential candidate since 1964.

Crist, who is vying for his state's GOP Senate nomination, recently vowed to a gathering of national conservatives that their party is poised for a rebound in the wake of two straight disappointing election cycles.

"America is awake and we're coming back," he said Friday at the biennial Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference on Mackinac Island, Michigan.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said he thinks President Barack Obama could be in for an ousting from office similar to what happened to Democratic President Jimmy Carter after his first term. (PHOTO CREDITS: Chris Welch/CNN)
MACKINAC ISLAND, Michigan (CNN) – Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said he thinks President Barack Obama could be in for an ousting from office similar to what happened to Democratic President Jimmy Carter after his first term.

"I think the people wanted a change," the Florida Republican said, speaking of the election of Obama in November while drawing similarities to events decades earlier.

"They wanted a change back in 1976. You remember? Richard Nixon had been president. That ended. Gerald Ford took over. The people decided they wanted a change. They got one-Jimmy Carter. Four years later, they took care of business-Ronald Reagan."

"It may happen again," Crist went on. "I believe that the people have seen that they wanted a change but not this much. Not this kind, and not this way. America is awake and we're coming back."

Crist, who's now running for U.S. Senate, said Republicans feel a winning streak coming on for the next few years, "so bad they can taste it," he said. "Especially after the seven or eight or nine months that we've had of this new administration."

Crist was the keynote speaker Friday night at the biennial Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference on Mackinac Island, Michigan.

House Republican Whip Eric Cantor delivered an address himself Saturday morning. Cantor touched on the healthcare debate, calling some of the options being discussed in Washington of late "ill-defined," adding they would be "a gamble," according to remarks sent out by Cantor's campaign committee.

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Marco Rubio is running for Senate in Florida.

(CNN) – Former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, who is running as a more conservative alternative to Charlie Crist in the state's Republican Senate primary race, called the governor's appointment of George LeMieux to the U.S. Senate "disappointing."

"This is a disappointing pick for Florida," Rubio said in a statement e-mailed to CNN Friday. "George LeMieux is a talented political operative and the governor's best friend, but that doesn't make him the right choice to represent Florida in the Senate."

"Governor Crist had a wealth of consistent and principled conservative candidates to choose from, all of whom would have been a reliable check and balance on the excesses of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda," he said.

Crist has chosen an interim senator.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Florida Gov. Charlie Crist tapped Friday one of his former aides, George LeMieux, to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez.

LeMieux - like Crist and Martinez - is a Republican. He will serve out the remainder of Martinez's term, which expires in January 2011.

Martinez released a statement calling LeMieux a "bright, capable, and an accomplished administrator" and promised "a smooth transition."

Florida Democrats immediately blasted the pick, arguing in a statement that LeMieux's "only qualification is being Charlie Crist's crony."

"Today, Charlie Crist decided to play political games with the public's trust by appointing George LeMieux to the U.S. Senate," said Karen Thurman, chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party.

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(CNN) - Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has chosen George LeMieux to replace Sen. Mel Martinez, Florida GOP sources tell CNN.

LeMieux is a former Crist aide.

Crist holds on to primary lead as appointment questions linger.

(CNN) – A new poll suggests Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is holding on to a clear advantage over his Republican primary opponent in next year's Senate race. But it's far from clear who he'll be facing – or replacing.

On Tuesday, GOP Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart declined a Crist invitation to submit a formal application for the seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Mel Martinez, who is stepping down early. Several candidates reportedly remain in the running, including state Rep. Jennifer Carroll, who met with the governor Wednesday and plans to apply for the post. If Carroll were appointed, she would be the first black Republican woman to serve in the U.S. Senate, and the only African-American member of the GOP in the current Congress.

Crist - who continues to hold a sizeable cash advantage over the former speaker of the state's House of Representatives, Marco Rubio – is maintaining a similar edge in the Quinnipiac survey released Wednesday.

Fifty-five percent of Florida's registered Republicans said that they would back Crist in the GOP Senate primary – more than double the 26 percent behind Rubio, who's counting on strong support from a conservative base unhappy with the National Republican Senatorial Committee's early decision to back the governor's Senate bid. Eighteen percent remain undecided.

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Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said Friday he would not appoint himself to fill the remaining time left in Sen. Mel Martinez's.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said Friday he would not appoint himself to fill the remaining time left in Sen. Mel Martinez's, R-Florida, Senate term.

Crist, who is running for Martinez's seat, would not speculate on who he might appoint to fill the remaining term, but the governor also noted that "there is not a long list of candidates" for the position.

"This is a very serious thing and I recognize that," Crist told reporters at a briefing in Florida.

"There is not a short list," he said. "There is not a long list, but I am getting a lot of calls and recommendations and volunteers."

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A new web video links Sarah Palin to Charlie Crist and Kelly Ayotte.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Senate Democrats are using Sarah Palin's decision to leave office later this month in a new Web video linking the Alaska governor to two GOP candidates in key battleground states.

The new spot from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee features an oath of office repeated by voices intended to represent Palin, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, and flashes images of hands with their fingers crossed behind their backs.

Crist and Ayotte have both announced their intention to run for the Senate next year; Ayotte has decided to resign early in advance of her run. Palin has not said whether she may be weighing a run for another elected office.

The first attempt to use Palin's pending resignation to slam Republican candidates began earlier this month, just days after she her decision.

(updated with GOP reaction after the jump)

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Charlie Crist raised $4.3 million in the second fundraising quarter of 2009.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Even in a slumping economy, Charlie Crist is justifying his reputation as a master fundraiser.

The Florida governor raised an average of $86,000 a day since jumping into the race for Mel Martinez's Senate seat in May, his campaign reported Thursday.

Crist collected $4.3 million in donations in the second fundraising quarter of 2009, despite entering the race on May 12 - 41 days into the quarter.

He has so far raised nearly 13 times as much as his Republican primary rival Marco Rubio, who announced last week that his campaign has raised $340,000.

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Huckabee endorsed Rubio in a video message Tuesday.

(CNN) – Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee officially endorsed Marco Rubio's Senate bid Tuesday, becoming the latest conservative to break with the national party over the GOP Senate primary race in Florida.

"I had a chance to get to know Marco over the years, spent a lot of time in Florida with him. And I've never seen a more energetic, articulate, principled conservative as Marco Rubio," Huckabee said in a video posted on his Web site.

"Marco loves liberty. He loves the idea that people can work hard and maybe get to keep something of what they worked hard for. That's the difference," he added.

Rubio faces Charlie Crist, the popular Florida governor, for the nomination. Crist immediately won the support of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee as well as a string of GOP leaders in Congress.

Conservative activists and bloggers have expressed disappointment the party was so quick to write off Rubio, a charismatic 38-year-old of Cuban descent whose quick rise in state politics and conservative credentials have won admiration from many in the party.

Huckabee's endorsement - first leaked accidentally more than three weeks ago - comes a week after South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint also threw his support behind Rubio, declaring he was "convinced" the former Florida House Speaker could beat Crist.

Recent polls show Crist with more than a 30-point lead in the race, though primary voters won't head to the polls for more than a year.

Sen. DeMint, on the right, is backing Marco Rubio, on the left, in the upcoming Republican primary for Florida's open Senate seat in 2010.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Sen. Jim DeMint said Tuesday he is "convinced" Marco Rubio can defeat Charlie Crist in the GOP's Florida Senate primary and win the state's open seat next November - even if his endorsement puts him at odds with Senate Republican leaders in Washington who are backing Crist.

Rubio flew up from Florida on Tuesday morning to greet DeMint outside the Capitol rotunda and officially receive the endorsement, his first from a sitting member of the Senate. The South Carolina senator - one of the chamber's most conservative members - described the former Florida House Speaker as one of the young leaders "who will help lead our party out of the wilderness and into the arms of a waiting American public."

Rubio called DeMint a "hero" to American taxpayers and said the endorsement has given his underdog campaign a "great boost."

When Crist announced he would seek the Senate seat in May, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and other prominent party figures in Washington quickly endorsed the Florida governor's bid, much to the disappointment of conservative activists and bloggers who favor Rubio.

DeMint said he had spoken with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and NRSC chairman John Cornyn about his decision to back Rubio, and that they are "fine" with the move. He said he hopes his announcement will give other legislators breathing room to go with their consciences and back Rubio.

"I don't think there's been any effort by the leadership to intimate anyone one way or another, I certainly haven't felt, so I think you'll see some senators, and I know some House members, jumping in behind Marco," he said.

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Crist holds a 31 point lead in a new Florida GOP primary poll.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Just about a month after formally declaring his bid for Florida's open Senate seat, a new poll out Wednesday shows Gov. Charlie Crist is maintaining a comfortable lead over his GOP primary challenger.

Crist holds a 31 point lead over former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, 54-23 percent, in the new Quinnipiac University Poll. More than 20 percent of Republicans in Florida remain undecided.

The popular first term governor announced in May that he would forgo re-election in 2010 and instead run for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Mel Martinez, a fellow Republican. Crist immediately won the backing by the Senate Republican leadership.

The poll surveyed 486 Republicans from June 2-7 and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Crist's support was crucial for McCain in the state's Republican presidential primary last year.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Florida Gov. Charlie Crist endorsed John McCain the weekend before McCain won the state's pivotal Republican primary last year, a victory that may very well have sealed the GOP nomination for the Arizona senator.

On Wednesday, John McCain returned the favor.

"Today I am pleased to endorse Charlie Crist for the United States Senate," McCain said in a statement released by Crist's campaign.

"Now more than ever, we need leaders who are committed to lower taxes, limiting government spending, and fighting for the people are needed in Washington," he said.

McCain is the latest top Republican to endorse Crist's Senate bid as party leaders in Washington look to avoid a difficult primary battle in Florida. Crist is facing an intra-party challenge from former state House speaker Marco Rubio, but according to a new Mason-Dixon poll, Crist leads Rubio by 35 points.

Full statement after the jump

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