GOP Civil War Explodes In Florida

The Florida Senate race has been a leading indicator of the trends of the national GOP this year. When Senator Mel Martinez decided to retire, the very popular, moderate Republican Governor Charlie Crist decided to seek the seat. However, Club for Growth favorite Marco Rubio also jumped into the race. No one thought he had a chance. However, the landscape for the GOP has changed a lot in the last year. The far, far right has risen at the expense of the merely far right and Charlie Crist may be a casualty.

The casualty of the civil war is Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer, a strong ally of Governor Crist. He released a statement that was critical of his far right critics:

“As you know, there is a great debate in our party on the direction, moderates vs. conservatives, whether we should have a big tent or a small tent,” said Greer. “And while I have made it my utmost concern to try and keep those arguments and discontents out of the Republican Party of Florida, over the last six months there has been a very vocal group within our party that has become very active in seeking an effort to oust me as chairman. They have distorted facts, they have talked about misspending of money, when the facts have been shown over and over and over that that’s not true. They have talked about my support of Gov. Crist for the U.S. Senate race. They have, as they say, thrown everything up against the wall as they possibly can, to either embarrass me or embarrass the Republican Party of Florida.

Steve Benen reminds us, Greer is no moderate Republican. Greer is the GOP politician who started the GOP hysteria over President Obama’s speech to schoolchildren.

Looking ahead, keep two angles in mind. First, this isn’t a fight between Republican moderates and Republican conservatives, at least not in any meaningful sense. Olympia Snowe vs. Jim DeMint? That’s the GOP center vs. the GOP right. Jim Greer, meanwhile, is perhaps best known for creating a national “controversy” in response to President Obama’s plan to tell school children to do well in school. At the time, Greer threw a tantrum, accusing the president of trying to “indoctrinate America’s children to his socialist agenda,” adding that Obama “has turned to American’s children to spread his liberal lies.”

Greer, in other words, was never a moderate/centrist, but he was still not right-wing enough for the Teabagger crowd.