Crist Goes on the Attack

Previously, Charlie Crist has said that he would like to avoid personal attacks in his campaign ads.  On September 24th Crist came out with this ad attacking Rubio and Meek.  The ad was circulating before Friday, but had not yet been released by the Crist campaign.  The ad accuses Rubio of using party money and credit cards to fund personal expenses (Florida Republicans say he paid the party back out of his own pocket at a later date).  The ad then turns to Meek, claiming that he steered government contracts to an "indicted developer who then hired Meek's mother and even bought her a Cadillac."

Meek then released the attack ad against him on his own Youtube account before Crist put the ad on the air.  A strange strategy indeed.  Meek then put out a press release calling out Crist.  I think the reasoning for this was to release the ad before Crist could so that Meek could call him out on his "Republican-style smear ad" ahead of time.  Whether this strategy will work or not remains to be seen.  The Meek campaign's press release contained this heated paragraph:

"After 5 months of obscuring his lifelong conservative record as a “no party affiliated” candidate, Crist has been unable to chip away the democratic votes he needs to win while Kendrick has consolidated his base.  Now, the governor is using the most cynical and desperate Republican attacks to stop the bleeding."

Meek's camp is calling out the Republican Party and Crist at the same time.  I think this is his obvious attempt to simultaneously call out Rubio and Crist at the same time as he falls further back in the polls.  This is a risky move by Meek, but I guess when you are down 25 points in the polls you'll try anything.  Meek did not attempt to actually refute the claims leveled in the ad.

A 527 group tied to Crist also came out with an attack on Rubio as being ‘soft’ on illegal immigration.  A letter was mailed around saying that Rubio had voted to allow children of illegal immigrants to get handouts when attending school when he was the Speaker of the House.  However, the aforementioned legislation died in congress.  Rubio needs to be careful; He is walking a fine line to please Tea Party Republicans who believe everyone should speak English and are for very strict immigration laws.  At the same time he must still keep the support of Cuban-Americans who are still very pro-immigration.