A pair of old-boy FSU Pikes coordinating closely for decades to exchange influence and large sums of filthy money at the highest levels of Republican state politics is definitely a big story if you care about this stuff. It’s a classic Tallahassee story that speaks to us straight from the dark heart of Mac Stipanovich or Jim Greer, replete with cynical arrogance.

Thinking about it as a Democratic primary voter, it bothers me more than Crist’s “flip-flopping” (everyone changes their mind, Adam Smith’s piece the other day made it seem an admirable, populist trait), his disloyalty (his party really did leave him) or the prurient personal rumors (whatever you’re into, just don’t mislead the voters).

It represents, for me, something altogether worse: Crist’s involvement and complicity with the crooked, stupid political culture of right-wing Tallahassee.

If Ray Sansom, the Semblers, John Morgan, and Harry Sargeant have two things in common, they are these: 1) they prefer Charlie Crist to Nan Rich and 2) Florida Dems should pay them no mind.

You point out that JJ types aren’t talking much about the Sargeant thing: it’s true. But if the DECs and FDP listened to the Susan Smiths of the world more often, Florida would be a better place. It seems to me to be very consultant-y and not very journalist-y to claim this sordid connection is no big deal.