Florida GOP Senate candidate Marco Rubio and his campaign have an unusual way of marking the one-year anniversary of the Obama stimulus event hosted by their GOP rival, Gov. Charlie Crist: aiming to raise $787,000 in the next ten days.

In a conference call this morning, Rubio said that new media and Internet-based grassroots had made his rise – now even, or slightly ahead of Crist in most polls: “Five years ago, this wouldn’t have been possible.”

But the campaign doesn’t sound like a front-running bunch; they suspect they’re about to endure an onslaught, coming from the Crist campaign and a press that they see as hard to distinguish from Crist’s operation. (Rubio adviser Todd Harris quipped, “the media are in love with Charlie Crist.”)

Rubio noted, “You’re going to see a very aggressive mainstream media in the aftermath of the Massachusetts Senate race. There wasn’t enough time for them to have an impact on a late-breaking phenomenon, and I think you’re going to see them react to that experience… The mainstream media agrees with this administration and its view on the role of government, and they’re going to be very aggressive against anyone who challenges that. When we were just a blip on the screen, we were an interesting curiosity, but now that we’re in the lead, they’re going to be very aggressive.”

Rubio noted that his schedule is still being dictated by finances; he did the call while boarding a plane. He said he has to turn down events simply because he can’t get to them; “I’m still flying commercial, and you know what an adventure that can be.”