It’s not a surprise but it’s what Joe Biden would call a “big deal”.
Florida Governor Charlie Crist will keep his political career alive by announcing his run for senate, not as a Republican, but with no party affiliation.
He’s been calling Republican and non-partisan donors alike asking for help in his independence.
His wife Carole is estimated to be worth $50 million. Recent Sunshine State Senate races have topped out around $15-16 million for big spending winners.
The governor could need that and more because he’ll lose the ground game and organization of the Republican Party of Florida.
The GOP establishment is about to turn against Crist in earnest. It could hinder his effectiveness as governor.
In the months ahead he will use his office to concentrate on the people’s business, put himself in photo ops highlighting his leadership, and decry the partisan sniping he will identify at every opportunity between his two rivals. He will cast them as hopeless captives of party influence and bickering.
Race has a small but real role in this three-way Florida race. Democrat Kendrick Meek, a four-term congressman from Miami Dade County is African American, Republican Former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio is Cuban American, and Crist a moderate, now calling himself independent, is white.
Rubio and Meek have both scheduled media availabilities to react to Crist’s move, but that will be just the beginning. In the next few weeks, as reaction pours in, all three candidates will begin to reposition for the long seven-month campaign. It will take some time for the candidates and strategists to sort out new ways of explaining their differences in a three-way race.
Crist starts his new career outside a major party with polls suggesting it’s a three way statistical tie.
Some will say Crist was driven out of the Republican party by conservative purists, or that tea party support for Rubio was the big factor. Both points have merit but are often overstated.
Charlie Crist has always been a moderate. He was a tough on crime attorney general, but otherwise “Chain Gang Charlie “ has always been a soft-touch centrist. Crist seemed to have a perfect political pitch only a couple years ago with stratospheric approval ratings. But for the last year in the GOP primary he has seemed tone deaf.
But that’s the point: he’s no longer in that party, and outside it, he is more popular.