February 25, 2010 12:12 PM 
 
 By Jack Funari 
 
 Two highly placed and independent sources, speaking strictly on background, tell me that Gov. Charlie Crist is preparing to leave the Republican Party and run as an independent in the race for the U.S. Senate. 
 
 With Crist trailing Marco Rubio by 18 points in the latest polls, the Crist campaign has been in panic mode, launching attack after attack on the conservative Rubio. 
 
 Yesterday, the attacks reached a crescendo with the Crist campaign, and/or his disgraced Republican Party of Florida thug bootlickers, leaking Rubio's credit card expenses from his time as speaker of the Florida House. 
 
 According to published reports, the former RPOF chair, the bovine bully-boy buffoon Jim Greer, spent more in a month than Rubio did in his entire two years as state House speaker. If all the Crist campaign has on Rubio is $53.49 at Winn-Dixie in Miami for ``food” and a couple of plane tickets for his wife, then it's game, set and match, as far as the Republican primary for Senate is concerned. 
 
 From what's been made public, Rubio's credit card expenses make him the most frugal of the Republican leaders with RPOF credit cards. 
 
 The attacks are not having the desired effect on the conservative Republican base because Crist, and the people who enable and support him, have lost all credibility with the majority of activists and Republican primary voters throughout the state. 
 
 Another well-placed source tells me the reason several Crist campaign staffers left recently is because, being committed Republicans, they refused to take part in an independent Senate run by Crist. That’s not confirmed by an independent second source, but it does ring true. 
 
 Now, reports from anonymous sources are sometimes wrong, so I have stopped short of reporting a Crist independent run as a verifiable fact, even though I believe my sources are accurate. 
 
 Here, in a minimalist nutshell, is why Crist will lose to Rubio in a Republican primary: 
 
 If someone told you that Sid Dinerstein, chairman of the Republican Party of Palm Beach County, was going to leave the Republican Party to become an independent, would you believe them? Would you believe it about Marco Rubio? No. If you knew anything at all about politics, or anything about Rubio and Dinerstein, you would dismiss out of hand such a ridiculous report as not being credible and just another silly political rumor. 
 
 So tell me, do you believe it is possible that Crist will leave the Republican Party to run as an independent? 
 
 You do, don't you? 
 
 And that is why Crist will lose to Rubio. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Jack Furnari is a regular contributor to this blog. He is a conservative activist and a former columnist for the Boca Raton News. He can be reached at jacktda@yahoo.com 
 
 
 
 
 
 ||||| Gov. Charlie Crist's (R-FL) Senate campaign is firing back at the latest round of rumors that he might be about to leave the Republican Party and run for Senate as an independent. 
 
 "This is patently false," said Crist communications director Andrea Saul, in an interview with TPMDC. I then asked Saul whether she thought the latest incarnation of this rumor might be an attempt by the campaign of Crist's opponent in the Republican primary, Marco Rubio, or by Rubio's supporters attempting to retaliate for the new reports about Rubio's use of the state party's credit card. 
 
 "Marco Rubio continuously does whatever he can to distract voters from the reality of his record," Saul responded. "There's a clear pattern that Speaker Rubio on the campaign trail says things that do not match the reality of his record, and this is yet another example of him trying to distract people from that."
– The merry-go-round of accusations continues in the Senate race in Florida between Republican Gov. Charlie Crist and his more-conservative rival, Marco Rubio. In the latest, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel is reporting that Crist is ready to ditch the GOP to run as an independent. A Crist spokesman immediately denounced it as a fake story planted by the Rubio camp as retaliation and an attempt to "distract voters," notes Talking Points Memo. Retaliation for what? Among other things, today's report in the Miami Herald that Rubio used a state party credit card for personal purchases. (Read a summary here.) Rubio's camp says those allegations were blown way out of proportion and accuse the Crist camp of leaking the records in the first place.