Rubio, a self-styled “movement conservative” whose parents were exiled from Castro’s Cuba, is a great hope to a party that has suffered an exodus of Hispanic voters in recent elections. He made the cover of National Review, won the endorsement of the Club for Growth, a conservative imprimatur and A.T.M., and has drawn big love from George Will, Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh, the Palm Beach resident. Sarah Palin has not spoken publicly about the race, but Rubio supporters who met her during book stops in Florida say she spoke glowingly of Rubio, and it would surprise no one if she endorsed him.
Crist has all along been the establishment candidate, whose blessings from entities like John McCain, the Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, John Cornyn, are seen by many conservatives as proof that Crist is the same-old vintage of Republican from the party’s 2006 and 2008 debacles. “Conservatives don’t need to be served these cookie-cutter candidates like Charlie Crist,” the conservative blogger Michelle Malkin said in a speech to conservative women, which I attended last summer in Nashville. “Otherwise we’re just going to keep getting the same results.” The room exploded in applause. It was the first time I had heard of Marco Rubio. Everyone else in that room of hard-core activists seemed to know exactly who he was.