With Rubio, Conservatives Can Hope

And indeed they do: Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio, who's running against the moderate Gov. Charlie Crist in a Republican primary that has drawn the attention of conservatives at the national level, will grace the cover of National Review's September issue, for a piece by John J. Miller entitled "Yes, He Can." Rubio has become a source of hope for conservatives who want to see the moderate, stimulus-embracing element of their party expunged. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee and is charged with winning Senate races for the GOP in 2010, caught some flak for endorsing Crist over the conservative upstart Rubio. In short, Crist vs. Rubio, to some conservatives, is a referendum on the future of the party. Whether that's fair, given that Rubio is a huge underdog, is another question. Florida political blog PrimeBuzz's Adam Smith proposes that the National Review spotlight will help Rubio raise some national money from grassroots conservatives. He'll need it: in the most recent polling, Crist leads Rubio 55 percent to 26 percent. The cover story should, at least, help Rubio's name ID.