I am flagrantly pushing for a Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio “grudge match” where the moderate Republican camp goes up against the conservative Republican camp. Though I have not endorsed either candidate yet, I am a bit disillusioned with Crist’s support of the very liberal president’s very liberal spending policies , as I wrote before. It looked like Crist was going to be a shoo-in for the GOP nomination, especially since Texas Senator John Cornyn, who is the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, quickly came out to endorse Crist right after he announced he was running for the Senate. That endorsement combined with support from Mel Martinez, the current occupier of the Senate seat in question, made it look like they were brushing Rubio aside.

Well, it looks like some people are saying “not so fast.” The Miami Herald columnist Myriam Marquez wrote that this quick endorsement shows that in the GOP “only white-haired RINOs [Republicans-in-name-only] need apply for the Washington job.” Ouch. One of the arguments is compelling but I think it is a non-conservative argument by its very nature. The argument is that a “big tent” Republican Party, facing a Democratic Party led by a biracial person, needs to reach out to Hispanics and minorities in order to be viable in the long term and Marco Rubio is Hispanic. As a Hispanic myself, I did not become a conservative because the Republican Party “reached out to me” but rather because conservatism is a more logical set of ideas that emphasizes on the achievement of the individual and the Democrats’ liberalism can only lead to total government intervention in the lives of its citizens, and I cannot support that. Therefore, whenever we make decisions on who the candidate for the party should be, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc. should not be a consideration. The GOP does not need affirmative action or racial quotas. We are all Americans. I do not expect an African-American or an Indian-American or a Mexican-American to be any less American than the non-hyphenated Americans. Americans are Americans, we need to accept this and move on. So when Rubio supporter Ana Navarro says that Republicans “have paid all this lip service to how desperately Republicans need to build bridges with the Hispanic community and young people, but a 37-year-old Hispanic running for statewide office gets the door slammed in his face,” she is doing the Republican party a disservice by asking for a “racial quota” or primary “affirmative action.” That’s a tactic used by liberals to divide up Americans along class lines, race lines, religious lines, and now sexual-orientation lines while Republicans should simply advocate the respect of human rights regardless of social “difference.” I like Rubio, but I just call ‘em how I see ‘em.

In the end though, this argument might win out. I think that the real argument that should win is the one that I keep hearing: Rubio is the most conservative. The question remains: does Rubio have the best ideas?

With conservatives and moderates vying for more influence in the party, this primary race will be very significant. I think it’s time for a healthy debate.

-AG