Via Jim Geraghty, a broadside against the “true conservative” from Team Crist:

The Crist campaign is already out attacking Rubio’s comments.

“It is incredible that Marco Rubio has based his entire campaign on attacking Charlie Crist for doing exactly what, he now admits, he would have done himself. Time and again, voters in Florida will begin to see the real Marco Rubio,” said Crist spokesman Andrea Saul…

Rubio spokesman Alex Burgos tells POLITICO that Rubio’s comments are not a departure from previous statements on the issue..

“There’s a big different between what Charlie Crist did by accepting the Obama stimulus as the best that congress could do, actively promoting it, advocating for it among his fellow Republicans,” said Burgos. “There’s a difference between that and what other governors ultimately did—governors like Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin, Haley Barbor—by reluctantly accepting federal funds after the fact.”

Yeah, I’m not sure who among Rubio’s supporters Crist expects will abandon ship over this. Centrists who are looking at Rubio because they don’t like Crist aren’t going to dump him for expressing a milder version of an opinion held by Crist himself. And grassroots righties certainly aren’t going to dump him given that Palin, the gold standard for true conservatism, accepted $900 million in stimulus money (while vetoing $28 million in energy funding). It’d be one thing if Mark Sanford had won his legal battle and succeeded in rejecting all of South Carolina’s money, but he didn’t so Rubio ends up being no less “pure” here than the purest fiscal conservatives in the land. Except for Ron Paul, I guess. Exit question: No biggie, right?