Florida’s political version of Hernán Cortés burns his last ship back to the GOP as he tries to chart an independent path to Washington.
It was barely more than 12 months ago that Florida Governor Charlie Crist found himself basking the media limelight. The politically-saavy governor of a swing state, Crist quickly positioned himself not only as the prohibitive frontrunner for Florida’s open U.S. Senate seat but as a presidential dark horse. That one year later Crist is bolting the GOP while the party’s Senate leadership that had once backed him are now suing to drain his campaign coffers speaks volumes of how fickle political fortunes can be.
Much has been already written of Crist’s numerous campaign missteps and penchent to spend his dwindling political capital faster than a crack addict with a gold card. Whether it was Crist’s ill-advised embrace of Obama and the stimulus (both literally and figuratively), his veto of a Republican-backed education reform bill or his Roger Muddesque inability to state why he was running for Senate, Crist’s once-famous campaign aptitude seemed to disappear into a Brigadoon-like political mist. As NRO‘s Jim Geraghty notes:
You don’t get to be governor of Florida without a halfway decent sense of political judgment, and in fact that’s supposed to be one of Crist’s best qualities: He may not be the boldest or most principled politician, but he’s always been popular and displayed a knack for staying on the right side of Florida voters…
Yet during this election cycle, Crist’s keen judgment disappeared and was replaced with the bumbling instincts of some of our most legendary modern political blunderers…Almost every key decision made by Crist and his campaign since entering the Senate race has backfired.
Less has been written about Crist’s path forward. While a few polls have shown Crist leading within the margin of error in an electoral ménage à trois with Marco Rubio and Kendrick Meeks, the political math remains at a calculus level of difficultly. Crist would need a bare majority of independents plus nearly 1/3rd of all Republicans and Democrats to secure a plurality. Just a political combination isn’t impossible but nevertheless rare among candidates not prone to wearing spandex and feather boas. Nor is Crist aided when 52% of independents claim to be unwilling to vote for him under any circumstances, despite a 60% approval rating among the unaffiliated.
Undoubtably, an independent bid was Charlie Crist’s best chance of being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010. Unwilling or believing himself to be unable to seek the Republican nomination in 2012 against Sen. Bill Nelson, Crist has bet his once rising star on an all-or-noting Cortés-like strategy. But left unanswered in his decision is how Crist believes he’ll be welcomed in Washington should he win.
Should Republicans win the Senate seats they lead in current polling, the GOP would pick up 8 seats this November. With California and Washington creeping into contention as well, one seat could easily tip the balance of power come January 2011. Such narrow margins will bring tremendous political advantage to any independent Senate candidate. Indeed, should the GOP come up one seat short, expect massive political pressure to be applied to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to switch caucus allegiances. Unable to afford a credible candidate to his right in what will likely be an incredibly bitter general election against a well-funded Democratic opponent, Lieberman might be tempted to caucus with the GOP even if his party affiliation remains unchanged.
Crist has little such luxury. While if victorious he’ll be courted by both left and right given 2010’s likely outcome, neither is likely to embrace him come 2016. And should control of the Senate shift sharply away from a narrow divide, Crist almost certainly would be discarded, his political leverage gone. Thus it would appear that Charlie Crist has gambled his entire political career on trying to acheive a single – and perhaps very lonely – term as Florida’s senator.
I think you might have another Top 40 hit with that post title.
This Crist saga has confused me. I remember the buzz last year about him, that he may be an up and comer for a party desperate for anyone who could woo the star-struck Obama worshippers.
I zone out for a year, and when I tune in again, suddenly Crist seems like someome trying to create political life from the worst aspects of Jim Jeffords, Arlen Specter and Lindsey Graham, and then is surpised when the monster gets off the table and the Republican peasants run for their pitchforks.
Stick a fork in the turncoat, he’s done. Good Riddance!
Loved the title Mitch.
Spot on, FR. It’s really an unfortunate turn of events; if he’d waited until 2012, he’d have had a clear shot against Nelson and would have had the support of just about everyone. Now he has nothing but his ego.
Well, I have to admit that I don’t have a problem when a candidate runs as an independent to the right of the endorsement. The ones that run to the left should be denounced and thrown out!
Let us please remember where we started from. Even I am a bit left of our founders; but not too much. 8)
I don’t know much about Crist, but I do think that this is a bad comparative:
. . . and penchent to spend his dwindling political capital faster than a crack addict with a gold card.
They give gold cards to spendthrift college students with no credit history. I think that these days the really good ones are named after legendary materials like “eternium” or “plutocratium”.
Funny to see Mitchus Pilate washing his hands of Crist’s crucifixion. Dontcha know it’s your fellow RINO hunters hammering the nails into Crist’s palms? Of course he has a decent shot at resurrecting his career as an independent, newly free of all those Republican pharisees. One fewer presidential contender for you kooks. Of course you don’t want to look too closely at the passions of the Crist. If you know what Angryclown means.
“Forgive Mitch, for he knows not what he does.”
I suspect deep politicking isn’t your bag, Mitch. But I wonder if there’s another level of analysis that would explain the situation?
Long ago, I had the dubious pleasure of working on a successful Congressional campaign. The candidate was a nice enough guy with good people skills, sure; but there are lots of personable nice guys who don’t get elected. He hired a smart, tough, out-of-state professional to run his campaign (Maria somebody – we were all terrified of her).
The candidate had his own ideas and his own personal philosophy. But the campaign manager advised him which issues to stress, which causes to embrace, who to seek endorsements from, where to spend ad money and which cheap shots to respond to with light humor and which to ignore as beneath him. It was based on her tea-leaf reading of the mood of the voters in the district in which he was running – NOT necessarily the Party Faithful.
He won and had a great career but give credit where due – that first campaign manager had a lot to do with it.
To what extent are Crist’s troubles the result of having the wrong campaign staff?
McCain was advised not to pick Palin. His staff did everything they could to isolate her and downplay her. But the honest truth is she got him as close as he got. Had he listened to his staff and picked, say, Lieberman, he wouldn’t have gotten a single electoral vote.
Could Clinton have succeeded without Carville? Bush without Rove?
Surface analysis says Crist made mistakes. Next level analysis might be to ask which campaign staff he’s using, what advice they are giving him, who they previously worked for and what results they had there.
And then to look at the Republican field of candidates to ask “Who is running your campaign?” If the campaign staff previously worked for Arlan Spector or McCain, is that who you really want working for you when you’re trying to win the GOP nomination?
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If you know what Angryclown means.
With this comment as few others, I honestly have no idea.
Uh, Clown? First Ringer wrote this one.
Angry Clown, being a bigoted, and not particularly intelligent individual, has forgotten that Lieberman was forced to run as an independent when the Democrats abandoned him. AC seems ignorant as well of the Case/Hanabusa backstabbing contest over Neil Abercrombie’s up-for-grabs congressional seat.
Mitch hasn’t heard the rumor that, like our Lord, Crist loves peter. A disqualifier for Republican elected officials, don’tcha know.