A Florida Republican Becomes a Right-Wing Target

By KATE ZERNIKE
NYT

NEWBERRY, Fla. — 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.

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