Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio is emerging as the champion of activists fed up with Republicans who don't stay true to conservative principles.

But if those turning against Gov. Charlie Crist are looking for a pure, uncompromising conservative, Rubio's legislative record might give them pause.

``He was a big disappointment to us when he was the speaker,'' said NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer, who saw Rubio do little to help pass a bill allowing employees to take guns to work. ``He talked the talk, but he didn't walk the walk.''

As speaker of the House, Rubio consistently presented smaller budgets than the governor and the Senate. But he also spent eight years casting votes and cutting deals that reflect the reality of the legislative process: hard-line ideology rarely triumphs over compromise.

The 38-year-old campaigning as an authentic, from-the-gut conservative is the same person who spent tens of thousands of dollars to test political messages on focus groups, gave out big staff salaries and, like Crist, favored a $60 million subsidy for a new Florida Marlins stadium.

Rubio says he knew nothing about it, but his handpicked budget chief, Ray Sansom, was able to funnel $35 million to a Panhandle college -- actions that led to a grand jury indictment against Sansom.

The candidate Rubio rails against big-government spending and assures voters that as a senator he won't slip earmarks into the federal budget. As speaker, however, he didn't mind a state budget with $800,000 tucked away for artificial turf on Miami-Dade fields where he played flag football.

The turf (listed as a juvenile crime prevention initiative) was among $50 million in pork targeted to the speaker's home county and more than $400 million in projects and initiatives that Crist vetoed in 2007.

``He may be a conservative in his rhetoric, but when you look at his record in what he has supported and what he has voted on in the past, he is definitely not the conservative he portrays himself to be,'' said state Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, a Crist supporter.

In a 2002 speech on the House floor, Fasano thundered against a measure introduced by Rubio that asked voters to allow a panel of legislators to review every sales tax exemption with an eye toward repealing them.

That bill was part of a horse-trading deal that ensured then-Senate President John McKay would see sales tax reviews and then-House Speaker Tom Feeney would have a congressional seat carved out for him. A legal challenge ultimately stripped the proposal from the ballot, and Rubio said it merely asked voters to give legislators authority they already had.

`LIMITED GOVERNMENT'

Rubio, who was speaker during the 2007 and 2008 sessions, said he understands people will probably find things to attack among thousands of votes he has taken but stands proudly behind the overall record.

``In life, as in policy, things don't always fit into neat little boxes, but overwhelmingly I have a record that testifies to a commitment to limited government,'' he said. ``And certainly someone you can rely on to go to Washington and stand up to the Obama agenda -- unlike my opponent.''

Still, Rubio voted for some of the same measures for which he now criticizes Crist.

• He criticizes the governor for expanding Citizens Property Insurance Corp., Florida's government-run property insurer, though he voted to do just that. ``The bill had a lot of other things in it that were good for Florida,'' Rubio said.