U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is back in the (state) Capitol in a new office more than a dozen floors above his old digs in the Speaker’s office this morning, hours before state lawmakers kick off the 2012 legislative session.

Rubio, a Miami native and former House Speaker who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010, said he set up shop in the Capitol to stay close to what’s going on in the state.

“There’s no doubt about it. We don’t want to lose touch with the state. From my experience as the speaker and as a legislator, there are a lot of issues that the state is facing that…overlap with federal issues” including the Everglades and the space program, Rubio said. “I think being here is going to allow us to have a person on the ground especially during the legislative session but throughout the year that’s literally just a few doors away from key decision makers at the state level.”

Rubio shook hands with lobbyists, well-wishers and Capitol staffers but also got an earful from a group of tea partiers unhappy with his votes supporting the Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that some critics believe gives the federal government the ability to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens accused of terrorism.

Rubio – whose tea party support helped clinched his U.S. Senate victory – argued that the law does not do that.

“I would never have voted for a bill that allows them to detain innocent American citizens in military tribunals. It’s just not true. We looked at that issue back and forth, left and right, up and down. It’s just not true. I would never support it if it did,” Rubio insisted.

But Paul Henry, a Monticello tea party activist and former state trooper, disagreed.

“What Sen. Rubio’s not aware of is this exact language that’s in there,” Henry said later.

One section of the law reads: “The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.”

“But that does not prohibit them (from doing it),” Henry said. “I’m not required to drive a car. I could walk.”

Rubio’s votes disappointed some members of the dozens of tea party groups gathering in the Capitol for the session’s opening day, but they insisted they’re not giving up.

“We helped get the Republicans in the House and they still voted for the debt ceiling. We helped get so-called conservatives get elected and they vote for the Patriot Act. I think you are seeing a lot of widespread discouragement of all the energy spent to get to this point and we still have to go back and tell them what being a conservative means,” said Henry Kelley, a Tea Party Network leader from Fort Walton Beach.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and a handful of other Senators are winding up a four-day in Afghanistan and Pakistan where they met with military officials from both countries and dined with Afghan President Hamid Karzai last night.

From Kabul this morning, the freshman from Florida told reporters he was encouraged by what he saw but cautioned that “2011 is going to be a very crucial year for our efforts here.”

Rubio joined Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Marco Rubio of Florida, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, on the trip where they met with Gen. David Petraeus and also watched Afghan National Army training exercises.

Rubio said the Afghan people and government need assurances from the U.S. that “we are in it for the long haul” and discouraged setting numbers for U.S. troop withdrawal from the region.

“People want to make sure that we are in this to win this. We are in this for the long haul,” Rubio said. “Everyone on the ground is really enthusiastic about the progress that’s being made…There’s a long ways to go. There’s no way to overestimate how serious the challenge is but we are headed in the right direction.”

Benchmarks for U.S. withdrawal from the region should not focus on the number of troops returning but the number of areas that successfully transition to a functioning government, Rubio said.

“From everything I’ve seen here we are making physical progress,” he said, adding, “You can’t overestimate what a difficult challenge it is.”

Afghanis need assurances that the U.S. will remain because they are afraid that “the bad guys” will resume control of the region, Rubio emphasized.

“They’re afraid to vote. Theyr’e afraid to take jobs and work for the government or volunteer for the military…because …these bad guys are going to come back in and take over again,” he said. “You are really creating a diff situation because people think the bad guys, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, all they have to do is wait.”

The League of Women Voters and PBS canceled debates between the U.S. Senate and gubernatorial candidates because GOP candidates Marco Rubio and Rick Scott refused to participate.

The League’s president Deidre MacNab said the debate, scheduled for Oct. 14, would have been the only one to reach all television viewers throughout the state.

The League could not get Gov. Charlie Crist, the independent U.S. Senate candidate, to confirm to appear either, MacNab said, meaning only U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, the Democrat in the three-way U.S. Senate race, had agreed to show up.

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In the midst of chatter about whether U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek should drop out of the U.S. Senate race, Gov. Charlie Crist nailed down the endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Crist, a lifelong Republican who turned independent to avoid running against Marco Rubio in the GOP primary, will appear with Kennedy in Deerfield Beach this morning to make the endorsement announcement.

Crist first hooked up with fellow environmentalist Kennedy at Crist’s climate change summit three years ago.

Gov. Charlie Crist believes he’s the only candidate who can “stop the Tea Party mess” and defeat Marco Rubio in the three-way U.S. Senate race and that a vote for the Democrat – U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek – equates to a vote for Rubio.

“It sure looks like it. Yeah. I mean, you know, regrettably, that would be the case. I think Democrats are reaching that conclusion all across Florida. They tell me that,” the Republican-turned-independent told reporters when asked if a vote for Meek would be the same as a vote for Tea Party favorite Rubio.

Crist denied that his campaign has been pressuring Meek, lagging in the polls behind frontrunner Rubio and Crist, to drop out of the race.

“Number one, there’s no pressure. People should do what they feel is right. But I’m clear about this. I’m the only candidate who can win in November and stop the Tea Party and the mess that Mr. Rubio would bring to Washington,” Crist said.

Crist said it’s up to Meek whether to drop out.
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Who’s a flip-flopper now?

After weeks of taking heat from GOP opponent Marco Rubio (and Democrat candidate U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek) in his quest for the U.S. Senate, independent Gov. Charlie Crist said Rubio can’t seem to make up his mind where he stands on the issue.

Crist said the former House Speaker changed his stand “three or four times in the past four months” about privatizing Social Security.

“It’s hard to keep up. But obviously he’s all over the map as it relates to Social Security,” Crist told reporters this afternoon. “The seniors of our state deserve to have somebody who will protect and will preserve Social Security. I’m the only candidate in the race who is committed to doing so.”

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Univision will host the first debate with Florida’s top three U.S. Senate candidates on Friday, Sept. 17.

The debate with Republican Marco Rubio, Democrat Kendrick Meek and independent Charlie Crist will be taped at 1 p.m. and the hour-long meeting will air at 11 p.m. on the station’s Miami, Orlando, Tampa and Fort Myers/Naples affiliates.

The three have also agreed to an Oct. 24 debate in Tampa.

Democratic operative Steve Schale predicts that independent Gov. Charlie Crist will not win the three-way race for U.S. Senate against Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Kendrick Meek. From his blog:

In this political environment, absent some significant and unfortunate event that would thrust [Crist] back into the spotlight, the odds of him finding 15-20 points of political approval in the next nine weeks are slim, at best.

Therefore, for Crist, who after 20 years of being a GOP insider, his only path to victory is to find a way to be Democratic enough to win enough Democrats, Republican enough to win enough Republicans, and to do that in a way where he doesn’t anger Independents. Not exactly the easiest thing to do, when Democrats now have a plausible alternative in Meek and Republicans in Rubio. If Greene had won, it might be a different story.

Democrats who support Crist keep saying to me, “well, we just need Dems to vote for Crist,” but that just isn’t going to happen in the margins he needs to win.

Today, Rubio has the clearest path to victory, but once Democrats figure out that Meek is their only option, his path will get much more clear as well.

U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, R-Fla., and Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Marco Rubio held a press conference this afternoon to offer their critiques of President Obama, who will be in Miami tomorrow for a fundraiser to help his fellow Democrats.

“He’s been frolicking around the country fund-raising,” LeMieux said.

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Gov. Charlie Crist praised President Barack Obama for bringing the First Family to Florida’s Gulf Coast for a brief vacation.

“It’s the biggest single commercial you could imagine. God bless him,” Crist said before meeting with Obama, his wife Michelle and a handful of Panama City business owners at a waterfront Coast Guard station.

Republicans have blasted Obama for what they called a “27-hour guilt trip” to the region where the economy suffered as tourism plummeted during BP’s massive oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Crist brushed off the criticism.

“On behalf of Florida and as Florida’s sitting governor, I couldn’t be more grateful that the president and the First Lady of the United States are taking the time to come to our Gulf Coast and highlight Florida and promote tourism and jobs for our people. There’s no other way to look at this,” he said.

Crist broke with the Republican Party earlier this year to run as an independent in the U.S. Senate race after polling showed he was trailing in a potential primary against former House Speaker Marco Rubio.

Crist, who gained notoriety for the now infamous hug with Obama, sidestepped questions about whether Saturday’s visit with Obama would help Crist’s effort to draw support from Democrats to his campaign.

“I don’t know. I have no idea. But I think what’s important is that I’ll stand with anybody who’s going to help promote Florida tourism and our economy. It would be ridiculous not to,” Crist said. “I’m very, very grateful that the President and the First Lady…put such a spotlight on Florida tourism.”

A McLaughlin & Associates poll sponsored by the Associated Industries of Florida:

A telephone survey of likely general election voters only slightly favors independent U.S. Senate candidate Gov. Crist over Republican candidate Rubio by 2 percentage points (38 percent versus 36 percent) when U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek is the Democratic challenger (16 percent of respondents indicated they would vote for Meek). If Jeff Greene was the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, those numbers shift slightly with Gov. Crist and Rubio both earning 37 percent of the vote, and Greene earning 16 percent. In both scenarios, 10 percent of voters were undecided.

The poll was conducted between July 31 and August 1, 2010, the poll surveyed by telephone 600 randomly-selected, likely general election voters throughout Florida. It has a margin of error of +/- 4 percent and a 95 percent confidence interval. The live telephone interviews were conducted by professional interviewers.

“It depends on what you emphasize,” Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio said in an interview this afternoon.

Rubio, who does not support an Arizona-type law for Florida, said the Republican Party should be the party of “pro-legal immigration.”

“We don’t need 49 other states to pass that law,” Rubio said. “What we need is for the federal government to do its job. That ruling is a reminder of why we’re even here to begin with. The federal government has refused to enforce our existing immigration laws. There’s no one out there more pro-legal immigration law than I am, but America cannot be the only country in the world that does not enforce its immigration laws.”

One of Rubio’s opponents, independent Gov. Charlie Crist, said he had “no reaction” to the judge’s ruling on Wednesday to temporarily suspend the most severe parts of the law.

“I’m a guy who believes in respecting the courts and I respect the decision of the judge,” Crist said.

Rubio started his underdog campaign on a shoe-string budget, joking at the time that his only campaign aides were “Mr. Garmin and Mr. SunPass.”

But as he’s risen from long-shot to front-runner, so have his expenses.

In the second quarter he spent $402,000 on seven political consultants, two finance consultants, one legal consultant, a compliance consultant and creative consultant for his direct-mail, a Palm Beach Post analysis of Rubio’s expenditures found.

“I thought he was just going from pine tree stump to pine tree stump generating an upwelling to sweep him into the Capital, said Republican operative Mac Stipanovich, who is supporting Crist in the race. “That kind of money for consultants isn’t really consistent with his image.”

Story here.

UPDATE: Scott, a Rubio supporter, says he believes Rubio has lost momentum because the Republican Party has not given him enough support. “If he was getting more support from the party right now then we would be seeing him out there more,” Scott said.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott, fairly unprompted, weighed in this morning on the state’s U.S. Senate race, which polls show Republican Marco Rubio and independent Charlie Crist trading the lead.

“Marco’s lost his momentum,” Scott said.

The comment came in a conversation with Ralph Beck, a Dunedin voter who was waiting for Scott at a campaign event in Clearwater.

Beck made an offhand comment about voting for Crist in the ’06 governor’s race. Scott responded with talk about poll numbers showing Rubio “five or six points” behind Crist.

From Rasmussen Reports today:

The race to become the next U.S. senator from Florida remains a very close one between Republican Marco Rubio and Independent Charlie Crist as both potential Democratic candidates struggle to gain traction.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Florida finds Rubio earning 35% support and Crist capturing 33% of the vote. Prospective Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek remains a distant third at 20%. However, for Meek, that reflects a five-point gain from earlier in the month. 

With Meek as the Democratic nominee, three percent (3%) say they’d vote for “some other candidate,” and eight percent (4%) remain undecided.

If real estate billionaire Jeff Greene wins the Democratic nomination, the numbers are Crist 36%, Rubio 34% and Greene 19%.

That’s more than the previous record for a Florida U.S. Senate candidate in a single quarter, which was set by then-Republican Gov. Charlie Crist when he raised $4.3 million in the opening days of his campaign.

Rubio has raised more than $11 million for his campaign.

We’re pretty sure Republican U.S. Senate Marco Rubio is opposed to a Gov. Charlie Crist, an independent candidate for U.S. Senate, calling a special state legislative session to ban oil drilling in state waters.

Here is the latest press release from the Rubio campaign today:

By The Numbers: Charlie Crist’s Political Photo-Op Special Session

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From Rasmussen Reports:

Regardless of which Democrat is in the race, Rubio carries roughly 60% of the GOP vote, while Crist earns 29% support from voters in his former party. It will be interesting to see if Crist can hang on to this level of support from Republicans as the campaign wears on.

Democrats are narrowly divided between Crist and the candidate from their own party. Voters not affiliated with either party give a slight edge to Crist. But nearly one-out-of-five Democrats and unaffiliateds remain undecided.

Rubio runs stronger among voters over 40, while Crist earns his best numbers among voters ages 18 to 39. Most conservatives like Rubio. Moderates and liberals give the edge to the governor.

The statewide telephone survey of 500 Likely Voters in Florida was conducted on July 6, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/-4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.

The rivalry between Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio can be traced back to 2007, when Crist was inaugurated as governor and Rubio was installed as state House speaker. The two Republicans battled over property tax cuts, health care laws and property insurance changes with Crist using his deeper political experience and bigger bullhorn to thwart Rubio and his House disciples time and again.

For the moment, Crist appears to have done it again. As Adam Smith at the St. Petersburg Times writes today, Crist’s decision to abandon the Republican primary with Rubio and run as an independent (combined with Crist focusing more on the oil spill than the campaign) has deflated some of the energy from Rubio’s campaign:

“It seems like I’m not seeing you guys as much,” Rubio joked to reporters. “We’re out there, we’re doing what we’ve always done. I think it’s just that we’re competing with a bunch of other races right now. Clearly, there’s an interesting primary in the Republican Party for governor, there’s an increasingly interesting Senate primary for the Democratic Party.”

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“It was a big story when Marco Rubio was opposing Charlie Crist, but right now the big story is Charlie Crist out in the Gulf of Mexico trying to save our beaches,” said Kevin Wright, a Rubio supporter and state House candidate from Wesley Chapel. “Rubio needs a new reason to energize people.”

Pollster.com contributor Kristen Soltis also says the oil spill has helped Gov. Charlie Crist in the U.S. Senate polls by making him look like a leader. From her analysis:

… Marco Rubio has struggled to pivot out of primary mode and into a general. The shift from running as “the true conservative” to a general election candidate will not be an easy one, and it becomes more and more critical with each tough poll that the Rubio campaign make that transition and begin to build his case to an audience beyond Tea Parties and local GOP groups.

There are a number of things going in Crist’s favor – but don’t count Rubio out. Five months is an eternity in politics. Looking at the recent polls and exit polling data going back to 1994, there are a variety of factors that will keep this race interesting through November.