"Charlie Crist Ought to Start Worrying"

The St. Petersburg Times reports:

Charlie Crist ought to start worrying. The Marco Rubio campaign says the underdog Republican candidate Natrev for U.S. Senate raised nearly $1 million in the last fundraising quarter - a giant improvement over his last quarter and a number sure to help eliminate doubts about his viability.

"It says to me that Marco Rubio is going to be the next senator from Florida, and it should say to a lot of other people that Marco Rubio is a very, very formidable candidate," said senior adviser Pat Shortridge

It's never been Rubio's goal to outraise Crist, who raised more than $4 million last quarter and is expected to bring in $2 million this quarter. Rubio just needs enough money to compete in Florida's closed Republican primary in August. And this seems to put him on pace to do just that. As George Will wrote last week, "Rubio intends to prove that 'in the most important swing state, you can run successfully as a principled conservative.' He probably will."