Crist in trouble in Florida Senate race?

NY Times:

In retrospect, even Charlie Crist admits that “the optics” of The Hug are not great.

It was in the glow of a new day in politics last February when Mr. Crist, this state’s popular Republican governor, took the stage with President Obama and declared that Republicans and Democrats had to rise above partisanship in support of an economic stimulus. And Mr. Obama embraced him.

Now, as a season of tea parties and fractious town hall meetings has energized the right wing, that embrace has endangered what once seemed like Mr. Crist’s surefire bid for a Senate seat and put Florida at the center of a debate about the future of the Republican Party.

Republican pragmatists argue that to take back its majority, the party has to appeal to a broader range of voters, even if it means running candidates who might stray from the party orthodoxy.

...

But the complaints about the hug also reflect anger about the stimulus — as Roger Pennington, a 56-year-old pharmacist, called it, “bad money after bad.”

That anger has fueled the broader anti-establishment furor expressed in the tea parties — directed as much at Republicans as Democrats, and especially at those like Mr. Crist who can be associated with Mr. Obama.

...

The premise of the Crist campaign is that you have to move to the left to get elected, but the Tea Party movement is driven more by independents than the far right or conservatives. They are the Perot deficit hawks. It is these independents that have moved the GOP ahead in the generic ballot. They are also where the passion resides in politics right now. They have the Democrats on the defensive and to some extent Republicans like Crist too. That is why he is worried about the "optics" of his Obama hug.

I think it is remarkable to see just how unpopular the Democrat stimulus bill is. If Crist is in trouble for supporting it, I suspect that many Democrats will be too.

This Houston Chronicle story shows some Republicans in Texas also being challenged by candidates from the Tea Party movement. In most cases it is the spending that is the issue. They are also going after Democrat Chet Edwards who is a Pelosi pet who was allowed to vote against the unpopular Democrat health care bill. I don't think voters were fooled by his deal with Pelosi.