In baseball if you're batting .364, you're an All-Star. In politics, not so much:

The vaunted Bush money machine in Florida has yet to step up for John McCain.

Some of Florida's most elite Republican fundraisers quietly grumble about McCain, cite his campaign's lack of outreach or just gripe about the tough economy. Others say no candidate could match the financial performance of Jeb and George Bush in Florida, while still more say the Bush family network has been succeeded by a new, Charlie Crist generation of money-raisers jumping enthusiastically behind McCain.

Regardless of the explanation, the numbers are striking. Of the 55 Floridians the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign designated as top fundraisers, either "Pioneers" who brought in at least $100,000 or "Rangers" who raised at least $200,000, only 20 have written their own check to the McCain campaign, a St. Petersburg Times analysis found.

Read the full story and you'll see McCain isn't doing terribly in Florida, but he isn't exactly setting the world on fire either. That lack of enthusiasm, of course, is the big challenge he faces across the country this year, especially relative to his competitor, and he needs to find a way to excite and energize the base while still maintaining his appeal to centrists and independents. It's a tall order, to say the least.