Weekly Election Roundup
Monday, May 3rd, 2010I just read Liz Sidoti’s AP article about the state of various elections when I read that Charlie Crist’s running as an independent might cost Republicans the seat in Florida.
I know that’s the CW being spread by the media but it’s BS everywhere else. Gov. Crist’s highest ratings as an independent are today. It’s all downhill from here.
Now that he’s an independent, GOP contributors are asking for their contributions back. Now that he’s an independent, his campaign staff is disappearing. Now that he’s an independent, Republicans that once supported him are abandoning him because they’re loyal to GOP candidates, not political opportunists.
The reality is that Gov. Crist isn’t the type of politician that inspires loyalty. Politicians like Marco Rubio, Michele Bachmann and Tom Emmer, the freshly endorsed GOP candidate to replace Tim Pawlenty as Minnesota’s next governor, have supporters that are so loyal to them that they’d run through proverbial walls for them.
Unprincipled political opportunists like Gov. Crist and Sen. Specter don’t inspire loyalty. Instead, they attract supporters that come and go with the breeze, here on the good days, vanished everytime else.
Another reason why people are fleeing the Crist campaign is because they don’t like politicians who speak with a forked tongue. Many are the bloggers who’ve noted that Charlie Crist told FNS Anchor Chris Wallace that he’d run as a Republican in the Florida GOP primary. The minute it became clear that he couldn’t win in the GOP primary, in fact the moment he saw that he’d get demolished, Gov. Crist didn’t hesitate in braking his promise.
If there’s one thing that today’s voters won’t tolerate, it’s politicians that flip-flop without good reason. Politicians that think they can get away with flip-flopping should ask Bart Stupak what his now-infamous flip-flop did to his political career.
By the time Election Day rolls around, Gov. Crist will be lucky to garner 10 percent of the vote, with much of that coming from Democrat Kendrick Meek.
Rasmussen’s latest polling shows Rubio with a 7 point lead over Crist in a 3-way matchup. That lead will widen as the campaign wears on. Gov. Crist’s decision to run as an independent will be seen as a Hail Mary attempt by an unprincipled politician to keep his career alive. If Floridians are like the rest of America, and I suspect they are, they’ll reject Gov. Crist’s naked political opportunism swiftly and thoroughly.
Put differently, Gov. Crist is in for the political thrashing of a lifetime. He won’t be a spoiler. He’ll just be a trounced loser the first Wednesday this November.
Technorati Tags: Charlie Crist, Primary, Independent, Marco Rubio, Michele Bachmann, Tom Emmer, , Republicans, Arlen Specter, Democrats, Election 2010
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog