I wrote to Charlie Crist this afternoon about this new ad:
Governor Crist—
How time flies. It was only a few months ago that you were clogging our phone lines with assurances that you were a “Reagan conservative” and a committed Republican.
Since then, of course, you have only continued your sprint away from both Reagan’s party and his principles, flip-flopping on everything from Obamacare—first you were against it, then you were for it, now you’re against it again—to education reform to traditional marriage. Indeed, the only thing about you that is consistent is your willingness to do or say whatever it takes to sustain your floundering campaign for another day.
So perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised me when I saw your recent attack ad on Marco Rubio misleadingly attribute the headline “IRS Investigating Rubio Expenditures” to National Review. A minute of research would reveal that the piece referenced, posted on National Review Online on April 21, 2010, consisted of an attributed quotation from the St. Petersburg Times and a response from the Rubio campaign.
It should have been obvious that the attribution belonged to the Times. Instead, you used the reputation of National Review to attempt to undermine Rubio’s support among conservatives. Your tactic is even more tawdry considering nothing ever came of the Times story, and not even the faintest whiff of wrongdoing has attached itself to Rubio.
On behalf of NR, we demand you correct your ad, though we have no expectation that you will do so, given that you are running one of the most unscrupulous political campaigns in recent history.
Actually, maybe I shouldn’t be so pessimistic. You’ve changed your mind about everything else—why not this ad?
Sincerely,
Rich Lowry