Timing is everything, or at least the most important thing, in so many areas of life. And Charlie’s political timing has been terrible. At least over the last three years. Thanks to some moderate and liberal stances Florida’s governor has taken since 2007, and some ham-handed attempts to cover up those positions or re-invent them, Crist has established an NCAA record for giving up a lead.
After being up by 50 points last spring, Crist now trails conservative former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio by 30 points or more in a race for nomination for the U.S. Senate seat Mel Martinez resigned from last summer. Rubio, running on conservative themes and vigorous opposition to the Obama regime, came up so quickly it’s a wonder he didn’t get the bends.
Last spring Rubio was in single digits in what was almost universally seen as a quixotic race against a popular sitting governor. Beat Charlie Crist? No chance, no way, no how, the political experts said. But sometimes experts outrun their expertise. (A skeptic once explained that a sex expert is a guy who knows 154 positions but doesn’t know any girls. I’m not sure what this has to do with Rubio and Crist, but I’ve been waiting years to work it into a column.)
In conservative-minded 2010, Florida independents are no longer enchanted with the expensive environmental schemes Crist has whooped up in the name of saving Florida from global warming. Nor are they keen on President Obama’s $787 billion “stimulus” slush fund that Crist, almost alone among Republicans, supported before it was policy, and then tried to say he hadn’t supported, and then defended, and then, hell, I forget what he did then. Trying to follow Crist’s cutbacks, misdirections, reversals, head fakes, and re-inventions on this one could give a snake a back ache. Read the rest of this article here.
