If you want to know why the NRSC’s endorsement of Charlie Crist in the Florida Senate race was such a stupid move, watch Marco Rubio‘s farewell speech to the Florida House of Representatives:

Everybody who’s watched the video is asking the same question: Why in the world would John Cornyn and the NRSC want to back Charlie Crist against this guy?

Carol of No Sheeples Here posted that video at Not One Red Cent the other day, and then Pat at So It Goes In Shreveport posted it. And then it was seen by Moe Lane of Red State:

I’ve been personally staying out of the entire Crist/Rubio NRSC endorsement brouhaha, mostly because we’re going to have Senatorial candidates that are going to need the NRSC’s help — but I do have to ask: does Charlie have anything that can beat that?

Seriously. Does Crist play at that level?

It’s that good, and Rubio’s not speaking from a Teleprompter, either. He rips the hide off the ball and puts it in the parking lot.

Even though some of the rhetorical content isn’t my cup of tea (I got a bellyful of Michael Gerson-style ‘Let’s Save The World’ treacle during the past eight years) Rubio’s patriotic passion makes it work. And when he says, “God is real,” well . . .

Update (AP): This sounds like a job for pessimism pundit! Crist leads Rubio by fully 35 points in the first poll taken, thanks mainly to Rubio’s lack of name recognition. That’ll change, of course, as the campaign wears on, but with first the NRSC and now McCain lining up behind Crist, this is a tall mountain for Rubio to climb. Still a good idea to run, though: The higher his profile gets, the better positioned he is to challenge Bill Nelson for Florida’s other seat when it comes up in 2012.

If you missed it in Headlines, read the open letter to the NRSC signed by several prominent righty bloggers (including our own Ed Morrissey) urging Cornyn and company to mind their own business when it comes to primaries.

This post was promoted from GreenRoom to HotAir.com.
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