![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lefteyeonthemedia.files.wordpress.com\/2008\/10\/crist-charlie.jpg\")
Florida’s political version of\u00a0Hern\u00e1n Cort\u00e9s burns his last ship back to the GOP as he tries to chart an independent path to Washington.<\/p>\nFlorida’s political version of\u00a0Hern\u00e1n Cort\u00e9s burns his last ship back to the GOP as he tries to chart an independent path to Washington.<\/p>\n
It was barely more than 12 months ago that Florida Governor Charlie Crist found himself basking the media limelight.\u00a0\u00a0The politically-saavy\u00a0governor of a swing state,\u00a0Crist quickly positioned himself not only as the prohibitive frontrunner for Florida’s open U.S. Senate seat but as a presidential dark horse<\/a>.\u00a0 That one year later Crist\u00a0is bolting the GOP while the party’s Senate leadership that had once backed him\u00a0are now suing to drain his campaign coffers<\/a> speaks volumes of how fickle political fortunes can be.<\/p>\n Much has been already written of Crist’s numerous campaign missteps <\/a>and penchent to spend his dwindling political capital faster than a crack addict with a gold card.\u00a0 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 <\/a>inability to state why he was running for Senate, Crist’s once-famous campaign aptitude seemed to disappear into a Brigadoon-like political mist.\u00a0 As NRO<\/em>‘s Jim Geraghty notes:<\/p>\n You don\u2019t get to be governor of Florida without a halfway decent sense of political judgment, and in fact that\u2019s supposed to be one of Crist\u2019s best qualities: He may not be the boldest or most principled politician, but he\u2019s always been popular and displayed a knack for staying on the right side of Florida voters…<\/p>\n Yet during this election\u00a0cycle, Crist\u2019s 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Less has been written about Crist’s path forward.\u00a0 While a few polls have shown Crist leading within the margin of error in an electoral\u00a0m\u00e9nage \u00e0 trois with Marco Rubio and Kendrick Meeks, the political math remains at a calculus level of difficultly<\/a>.\u00a0 Crist would\u00a0need a bare majority of independents plus nearly 1\/3rd of all Republicans and Democrats to secure a plurality.\u00a0 Just a political combination isn’t impossible but nevertheless rare among candidates not prone to wearing spandex and feather boas.\u00a0 Nor is Crist aided when 52% of independents claim to be unwilling to vote for him <\/a>under any circumstances, despite a 60% approval rating among the unaffiliated.<\/p>\n Undoubtably, an independent bid was Charlie Crist’s best chance of being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010.\u00a0 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\u00a0Cort\u00e9s-like strategy.\u00a0 But left unanswered in his decision is how Crist believes he’ll be welcomed in Washington should he win.\u00a0<\/p>\n