Let's begin with an important and relevant statement of reality: Charlie Crist, Democrats' gubernatorial nominee in Florida, believes nothing. He is a soulless political vessel, bobbing along with the current as needed, endlessly seeking power -- regardless of what he has to say or profess to that end. This is a man who got himself elected governor as a 'conservative Republican' in 2006, then became an independent in a fit of sore-loser pique, having lost the GOP Senate nomination to Marco Rubio in 2010. When Rubio smoked him and the Democrat in the subsequent general election, Crist then switched to the Democratic Party. He currently serves as a Congressman, a position in which he's been a reflexive Biden-Pelosi disciple, voting consistently in favor of nearly all the policies he spend years purporting to oppose.
Ironically, he's been assailing Gov. Ron DeSantis as a presidential aspirant who's not really interested doing his current gig. It's ironic because DeSantis has been a highly engaged chief executive, whereas Crist rarely shows up for his present job, habitually voting by proxy so he can spend more time pursuing higher office (finally throwing in the towel and resigning this week). In short, the man is shameless and shapeless. And Florida Democrats have seen fit to select him as their standard-bearer this year. As Spencer noted, after becoming the nominee last month, Crist decided to launch his general election campaign by attacking more than half of the state as a bunch of bigots whose votes he's not interested in winning:
Crist: "Those who support DeSantis should stay with him and vote for him and I don't want your vote. If you have that hate in your heart, keep it there." pic.twitter.com/S0B93bw52i
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 24, 2022
It's extremely rare to hear a politician explicitly reject voters' support, with the rare exception of disavowing some particularly odious or toxic figure or group's endorsement. In this case, Crist seems to believe that category entails...millions of Floridians. A majority of Floridians, in fact, per recent polling. In follow-up comments about the remark, Crist channeled Lil Wayne lyrics and claimed that he's running for governor on the "battlefield of love," unlike DeSantis' hateful agenda. Insulting voters that way is a foolish strategy in general, especially for someone who is considered the underdog. But maybe that could be minimized as merely an ill-advised, off-the-cuff mistake. Crist's choice in running mate, by contrast, was presumably a carefully-considered decision. And my goodness, the selection is a gift-wrapped opposition research bonanza for the DeSantis campaign. Click through to Rebecca's post and just keep scrolling. A small taste:
Did the Crist campaign do 0 vetting?
— AG (@AGHamilton29) August 27, 2022
This wasn't exactly hidden oppo. That's a Miami Herald article. https://t.co/en968RyX8C
Reminder that in 2020, @CharlieCrist’s new expected running mate Karla Hernandez-Mats, the president of the Miami teachers union, set up a protest to keep schools closed. She brought hearses outside of a school board meeting, insinuating kids would die if schools were opened up. pic.twitter.com/W7zqqCGxvM
— Will Witt (@thewillwitt) August 26, 2022
Crist is running alongside a leftist anti-child, pinkish kook. By choice. Setting aside the many politically problematic tweets, comments and beliefs espoused by Karla Hernandez-Mats over recent years, the bigger picture matters more: Charlie Crist has added to his ticket a woman who perfectly personifies the failed, extremely harmful and anti-science COVID policy approach that DeSantis correctly stiff-armed during the pandemic. Perhaps the single most important decision he's made as governor was the controversial but correct call to reopen schools in the fall of 2020. That data-driven move prevented incalculable damage to Florida's children and families. Crist's running mate, in her capacity as a literal teachers union boss, fought that decision tooth and nail -- in the most idiotic, alarmist and demagogic ways imaginable. Corey DeAngelis writes:
Ms. Hernández-Mats, who is also a vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, opposed reopening Florida public schools. In September 2020, the UTD organized a caravan, including a hearse, to protest reopening schools outside the Miami-Dade County School Board headquarters. Ms. Hernández-Mats insisted that “lives are going to be lost” if Miami schools reopened. Florida’s schools reopened in 2020, but in 2021 the AFT successfully lobbied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to tighten school-reopening guidelines, which kept schools elsewhere closed longer...Like Mr. McAuliffe, Ms. Hernández-Mats has publicly disdained parents. Last October she tweeted a meme likening parents who express their views at school-board meetings to serial killers and horror-movie villains and commented: “For any of you following the school board meetings, you know the craziness is real.”
DeAngelis also notes that DeSantis has continued to put education front and center, to great electoral success: "DeSantis-backed candidates won big in Tuesday’s nonpartisan county school-board races," he writes, referencing outcomes the governor has been deservedly crowing about. By picking Ms. Hernandez-Mats, Crist is practically inviting DeSantis to once again place his best and most consequential decision at the forefront of the entire campaign, drawing an extremely clear contrast on a galvanizing issue in a way that undoubtedly and decisively benefits the incumbent. This is manna from heaven for an already-favored Team DeSantis. So to answer the question posed in my headline, all of this suggests to me that Crist has no real intention or expectation of winning this race. He knows his candidacy is a long shot, perhaps growing longer by the day. He also knows he would no longer be a member of Congress within a matter of months, so he's already quit that job. He's therefore made the strategic calculation, apparently, to run a slash-and-burn 'Resistance' campaign against a leader loathed by his latest tribe.
Crist no doubt has some future self-serving goal in mind, so he's adopting the unhinged tone and approach that set Nikki Fried on a path to getting crushed in the primary. What we may actually be witnessing, however, is the political death rattle of an ebbing, directionless career. Florida voters will have the final say in about two months, but if Crist loses in a statewide contest again -- under his third partisan banner -- good riddance.
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