Jigsaw Politics

The publication said Rubio -- a former state House Speaker who is challenging the heavily recruited Crist's status as the candidate of the party establishment -- had been calling Republicans in Florida about the possibility of his switching to next year's open-seat race for state Attorney General.

But Rubio, in a speech to Tallahassee-area Republicans Wednesday night and in comments to the state media, flatly denied the rumor. "I'm a U.S. Senate candidate, been on the road all day, and I'll be out there again tomorrow," Rubio said, according to the Tallahassee Journal.

The Rubio incident came on the heels of a similar flap last Friday in Illinois. This one involved Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, the GOP's leading potential candidate for the open Senate seat that Barack Obama held when he was elected president in 2008.

The Washington Post reported that Kirk was forgoing the contest. This, the report indicated, was largely because of a backlash by conservative activists over the centrist congressman's vote for a measure to limit industrial emissions linked to climate change. The legislation, passed by the Democratic-controlled House and pending in the Senate, is pilloried by most other Republicans as a looming catastrophe for the nation's economy.

But Kirk, though he has not made a definitive public announcement that he is running for the Senate, strongly denied that he has opted out of the race, and received backup from a number of his GOP allies in the state.

As long as candidates such as Rubio and Kirk can extinguish these brush fires and keep them put out, their campaigns likely won't be too badly burned.

But these incidents are the kinds of things that fledgling candidacies want to avoid. When you launch a campaign, you want to hit the ground running. You don't want to hit the ground pleading your case that you really intend to run.