Charlie Crist thinks you are lazy and stupid

Goodtime Charlie Crist, who is down by 12 points in the latest Rasmussen poll of Republicans in Florida, is resorting to some desperate and dishonest measures in trying to stop the bleeding.

He is currently running an ad in which he purports that Marco Rubio is in favor of a “cap & trade” system to regulate carbon emissions. The ad quotes Marco Rubio as follows:

“…I am in favor of giving the Department of Environmental Protection a mandate that they go out and design a cap and trade, or a carbon tax program…”

The quote was taken from an interview with Rubio on March 13, 2008 when he was the Speaker of the House of Representatives in Florida. Of course the quote is taken completely out of context. Here’s a link to the full interview from “Florida Face to Face” (you’ll need Real Player).

Now here’s the quote, in its entirety, in context (22:30 into the program):

Beth Switzer: “I want to move into the area of the environment. You talked about the house focusing on an approach…a responsible approach is how you have labeled it…to climate change, and really looking at it the way it relates to our economy and what brings folks to the state of Florida . What do you think the legislature should do in terms of funding initiatives or in dealing with issues related to climate change.”

Marco Rubio: “Well, as far as funding initiatives, it’s going to be very difficult this year. As much as green technology is a great part of the of future it is hard to tell transplant patients that they’re not going to get their anti-rejection drugs because we have to fund some clean technology program somewhere. So we’re going to have fundamental choices like that to make and we’ll have to make the right choices. There are such things as priorities between life and death and something that’s really good. And so we’ll going to have to pick the life and death issues.

And I’m not being dramatic when I tell you those are the choices because that’s exactly the choices. When we’re faced with a four and half billion budget cut. Okay. That being said there is nothing Florida can do by itself to change climate change in the world. There’s nothing. We are less than two percent of the greenhouse gas emissions on the planet. And even if tomorrow every car and every airplane in Florida were to stop, climate change, carbon emissions in the world would not noticeably decline, because the environment has no boundaries.

So then what should Florida do? Florida should do two things, which is first Florida should position itself for what I believe is inevitable, which is a federal cap and trade program. Florida should do everything it can to be an earlier complier, so that it can access early compliance funds, and so that it can help influence what that cap and trade looks like at the federal level, and so I am in favor of giving the Department of Environmental Protection a mandate that they go out and design a cap and trade, or a carbon tax program, and bring it back to the legislature for ratification sometime in the next two years. I’m in favor of them designing it. I’m not in favor of them designing it and implementing it. I’m in favor of them designing it and bringing it back to the legislature.

The second thing we need to do in Florida is we need to look for ways for us to become a leader in the industry of clean technologies. The future of energy, the way we’re going to clean up our environment, the way we