NAVARRE -- U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio is an unlikely contender in northwest Florida, a strip of the Bible Belt closer to Alabama than his hometown of Miami.

For the young, Cuban-American politician, Panhandle voters could be a tough crowd: They've come across few Hispanic candidates and often view South Florida as a cesspool of incivility and corruption.

But in a Republican primary that's shifted from a cakewalk for Gov. Charlie Crist to a referendum on whether he has sold his Republican soul, many voters in Northwest Florida say they don't care if Rubio speaks Spanish -- as long as he speaks ``true conservative.''

``Listening to you makes me feel like there's hope,'' said retired teacher Anne McLemore after hearing Rubio at a Republican women's club in Miramar Beach. She added later, ``He was saying all the things I need to hear.''

Rubio repeatedly hit the highlights of the conservative agenda in a two-day Panhandle tour last week that took him from a Pensacola diner that boasts ``no grits, no glory'' to a wood-paneled Best Western in DeFuniak Springs. Offshore oil drilling? Check. No amnesty for illegal immigrants? Check. Limited government, gun rights and term limits? Check, check, check.

He's been making road trips like this one for months, introducing himself to Republican activists in every corner of a state where he is largely unknown outside of South Florida.

The shoe-leather campaign along with national publicity and a solid fundraising run have made him a credible candidate against the sitting governor.

Still, a Herald/Times poll shows Crist looming over Rubio 50 to 28 percent, with an even wider lead in northern Florida.

``While I'm encouraged, the fact is, if the election were held today, I'd still lose,'' Rubio said recently.

RISING STAR

Out on the campaign trail, though, the 38-year-old Rubio looks a political giant slayer. Voters slip $50 and $100 checks into his hand and chase him down to get autographs on the September National Review magazine cover photo that boosted his national profile.

``We are tired of apologizing for our principles,'' Rubio says frequently. ``We are tired of watering down our stands to win elections.''

Except that elections in the nation's fourth-largest state are typically clinched with multimillion-dollar ad blitzes, not rousing stump speeches. Crist had $6.2 million on hand at the end of September -- though some of the money must be reserved for the 2010 general election -- compared to Rubio's stash of less than $1 million.

``Marco has been running in a vacuum,'' said Republican consultant Jamie Miller, who ran Katherine Harris' 2006 Senate bid. ``It's very encouraging to go out and have 100 people clap for you, and it's an important group of voters, but at the end of the day it's only 100 voters.''

Walton County Republican Party Chairman Tim Norris, a Crist ally who passed up hearing Rubio speak on his home turf last week, said, ``The governor will carry the Panhandle overwhelmingly.''

CHALLENGE AHEAD

Even if Rubio musters an upset, his hard-line conservative stances threaten his mainstream appeal in a general election bid for Democratic and independent votes. The former leader of the Florida House says the Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion should be overturned, supports abolishing income taxes in favor of a national sales tax, and declines to venture an opinion on President Barack Obama's U.S. citizenship.

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