He who holds the elevator power

Not unlike the ups and downs of a building elevator are political polls such as the two recent ones now showing U.S. Senate candidate and former House Speaker Marco Rubio taking over the lead from fellow Republican opponent Gov. Charlie Crist.

On Jan. 27, both candidates were in the Capitol to speak back to back to a group of government reporters as part of the Associated Press' annual legislative day.

Crist took the elevator from his office on the first floor up to the 22nd, and top floor, to speak to the group first at 9 a.m. After taking questions, at 9:30 a.m., the governor promptly made his way through the press horde back to the elevator.

Rubio was next — scheduled for 9:30 a.m. — but no Rubio.

A couple minutes later, a slightly embarrassed Rubio, aware of the tight schedule, made his way down the hallway from the elevators to the event meeting room.

While being introduced, the AP moderator was kidding Rubio for being late, prompting Rubio to explain: “Someone locked the elevator.”

Then, the governor's opponent quipped, “You know, there's only a handful of people who can lock that elevator.”

Symbolically, at least, Rubio had to like the fact that he was heading up, while the governor was going down. A few days later the Rasmussen Reports poll came out showing Rubio's numbers rising and Crist's falling with Rubio taking a 49% to 37% lead over Crist.