A new poll on the Florida Senate race supports the idea that Republicans are dissatisfied with their party because it’s not conservative enough. Gov. Charlie Crist, the so-called moderate, is getting chomped by the so-called conservative, former State House Speaker Marco Rubio.

The Oct. 12-18 Quinnipiac University poll finds the governor comfortably leading former House Speaker Marco Rubio for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination, 50 percent to 35 percent among Republican voters. But Crist’s lead has been cut in half since Quinnipiac last polled the race in August.

Labels in this case are deceiving. Crist has lurched to the right like one of Florida’s many elderly drivers, who often prefer the parking lane to the road. His signature recently graced a bill to remove decision-making power from Florida’s water management board members, who receive input from residents at public meetings, and hand it to agency directors, who receive input from the governor and developers whose plans depend on privatizing the public’s water resources.

He also signed a developer and Realtor-sponsored bill to remove “concurrency” requirements for speculators who want to add projects in metro suburban areas without providing infrastructure such as roads and sewer lines. This gift to private interests comes wholly at taxpayer expense.

Rubio, on the other hand, can’t rightly be labeled a conservative, if by the term you mean an office-holder who believes in keeping government out of social issues. From his web site:

As a state legislator, I supported various pieces of pro-life legislation that, among other things, would require doctors to perform ultrasounds before performing abortions and another bill that would ban the use of taxpayer dollars to fund stem cell research.

Rubio also supported informing parents of children’s use of social network sites, as well as man-lady marriage.

Both Crist and Rubio are easy to lampoon. @FakeCharlieC tweets an endless stream of reasons Crist is the taking the day off.

# Taking the day off in honor of Zac Hanson’s birthday. MmmBop, Indeed.
# Taking the day off in honor of the anniversary of the execution of Mata Hari.
# Taking the day off to celebrate the 1961 birth of wrestler Bam Bam Bigelow. I like wrestlers. And movies about gladiators.
# Taking the day off in honor of the anniversary of Princess Diana’s death. I never got why people thought she was so pretty, though
# Taking the day off in honor of the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall.
# Taking the day off to figure out who this George LeMieux guy is.
# Taking the day off in honor of the birthday of American rapper Mase, born today in 1977.
# Sorry, had to take a few days off from taking all these days off.

@FakeMarcoRubio recently tweeted,

# 16 tweets about the Gator game yesterday! That’s the type of Senate-ing you can expect from me!

And it was true. I follow the real Marco Rubio and learned more about that game from his tweets than I would have if I’d watched it.

Much as it amazes me, I support Rubio in his primary bid against Charlie. Rubio seems real, if a little full of himself (the wallpaper at FakeMarcoRubio shows his delight at his portrait in the Capitol at Tallahassee). And Charlie wouldn’t know real if it bit him on his tanned and buffed ass. But the best reason to support Rubio is that this same poll, and others, show he would be easier for his Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, to beat. Go Marco!