Rubio Vs. Crist Fight Shifts To Health Care

Marco Rubio's done dropping hints -- if Charlie Crist wants to appeal to Democratic voters, Rubio's going to treat him like a Democrat. And on issues like abortion, education, offshore drilling and now health care, Crist is giving Rubio some ammunition for that argument.

In fact, if you watched Rubio's new web video attacking Crist on health care reform, you'd have no idea that the Florida Senate race pits two men against each other who were at one time among the state's most powerful Republicans -- Rubio was the former speaker of the state House and Crist was the Republican Governor before he dropped out the party to run as an independent. In the video, Rubio makes Crist sound like a real Democrat.

Even before he left the GOP, Crist was shifting toward the left on issues like abortion and education. And this week comes the emergency legislative session Crist called to put an offshore oil drilling ban on the ballot this fall (that effort is expected to fail, and most say its real goal is to boost Crist's standing with environmentalists). Rubio, of course, has attacked Crist for every shift leftward.

Now comes a new front -- and one that could pit Crist against what's left of his GOP base. In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Crist appeared to be shifting toward support for the Democratic health care bill.

From the Journal:

Despite pledging as a Republican to help repeal President Obama's health-care overhaul, Mr. Crist now says he does not support such a move.

"It should be modified," Crist told the paper.

Rubio, unsurprisingly, is having a field day with the shift. The battle returns Rubio to where he's most comfortable -- attacking Crist from the right on fiscal issues. It's almost like a return to the days of the Republican primary, when Rubio hit Crist endlessly with images of the governor and President Obama at a joint rally touting the stimulus.

Since the Journal piece came out, Rubio has been whacking Crist with his past opposition to the health care law on a daily basis. Last Wednesday, his campaign distributed a cached version of Crist's Republican Senate campaign website ("Charlie Crist strongly opposes the government run health care plan that was recently signed into law by President Obama and supports its repeal") and asked, "Does anyone, including the governor himself, know where Charlie Crist stands on anything?"

With the new health care rhetoric, Rubio has begun to run against Crist as though he were the Democratic nominee. Check out this web video Rubio's campaign launched Friday tying Crist to the Democratic leadership in Washington:

For Crist's part, the governor is still being coy about whose side he'll join if he makes it to the Senate this fall. "As Gov. Crist has said repeatedly, when he gets to the United States Senate, he will caucus with the people of Florida and take the best ideas from both parties to best serve his state," Crist spokesperson Danny Kanner told CongressDaily.

On a conference call with reporters Friday, Rubio suggested that it doesn't matter who Crist plans to caucus with. The very fact that he's willing to make the dramatic political shifts he is on issues like health care reform offers Rubio his line of attack -- namely, a return to the campaign he started back in 2009.

"I'm running on a set of principles that are no different than the ones I had when I started this race," Rubio said. "If you look at my speeches a year ago, there's no difference."

On health care at least, the same can't be said of Charlie Crist.