Marco Rubio - U.S. Senate - 2010

Miami, FL – On the eve of the first anniversary of Charlie Crist’s embrace of President Barack Obama’s failed economic policies, Cesar Conda, an early Crist supporter, has decided to throw his support behind U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio.

“Each day, more and more people are turning away from Charlie Crist and embracing Marco Rubio’s positive, idea-driven leadership,” said Rubio campaign spokesman Alex Burgos. “From the recent endorsement of stalwart Republican leaders like Paul Ryan and Mike Pence, to the success we have seen on www.stimulusbomb.com, it’s becoming clearer that the momentum for a limited government agenda continues to shift in Marco Rubio’s favor.”

Conda, who served as assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney for domestic policy and senior economic policy advisor to Mitt Romney during his 2008 presidential campaign, explained his switch from Crist to Rubio in a commentary for National Review Online.

He says of Marco Rubio, “He struck me as someone who was genuinely interested in the nitty-gritty of public policy; a true policy wonk who had championed 100 reform ideas when he was the Speaker of the Florida house. Furthermore, I came away thinking that Marco Rubio is someone conservatives could trust to go to Washington and take on President Obama and congressional liberals as they move to massively expand government.”

In explaining his change of heart on Crist, Conda points to Crist’s troublesome record on economic issues, “For one thing, Governor Crist’s fiscal-responsibility score has fallen. According to Cato’s Chris Edwards in an October e-mail to the St. Petersburg Times: ‘But as the report’s author, I am concerned that the governor has fallen off the fiscal responsibility horse since the report was written in mid-2008. In particular, Crist approved a huge $2.2 billion tax increase for the fiscal 2010 budget, even though he had promised that $12 billion in federal ’stimulus’ money showered on Florida over three years would obviate the need for tax increases.’”

READ THE FULL OP-ED: “The Crist to Rubio Switch”