Charlie Crist, lame duck governor of Florida, represents an interesting case study in political survival. Governor Crist, once known as Chain Gang Charlie for his relentless hard-core approach to handling criminals, has had a change of heart in recent years.
As recently as last year, when he switched from Governor-mode to candidate-mode, Crist was attempting to out-conservative opponent Marco Rubio.
As recently as last week, Crist was speaking publicly about his very private faith and how it has shaped his public policy.
Two days after that stirring speech, Crist vetoed a law passed by the Florida Legislature that would have required women seeking an abortion to view an ultrasound.
Along the way, Crist ditched the Republican Party to run for Congress as an Independent, right after it became obvious that he had zero chance of winning the Republican primary. As such, his jarring shift to the left was not in itself shocking. He is hardly the first politician to tergiversate for political expediency. Nor was it at all surprising that Crist has refused to return campaign contributions to donors who thought they were funding his campaign as a Republican. He’s far from the first politician to put money ahead of propriety.
The only thing that is really surprising to me about Crist’s behavior is that, watching him, you’d think he really believes that he has a chance of winning. Crist may be a living caricature of a sleazy politician, but he’s not dumb.
Could it be that he really believes in the Democratic support he’s got in the polls? Surely he’s savvy enough to realize that no matter what those liberal voters tell the pollsters in June, they’re not going to vote for him over a candidate with a (D) next to their name in November. It just won’t happen.
He’s got no momentum, no support, and he’s burning bridges faster than he could possibly build new ones. He just alienated thousands of single-issue voters on the Pro-Life side without doing nearly enough to pick up new ones on the opposite side.
I know Charlie Crist is clever. I know he’s got a strong political-survival instinct to hold onto power. Maybe he’s got a plan up his sleeve that I just can’t see. But everything he’s done lately just smacks of the last-ditch desperation of a soon-to-be-forgotten ex-politician.
