We’ve posted about this before, but I continue to be amazed at how steeply Florida’s Republican governor, Charlie Crist, has fallen off a cliff in the U.S. Senate race. The latest indicator comes from Public Policy Polling with a survey out of the Sunshine State that shows teabagger favorite Marco Rubio leading Crist by 60-28 percent.
Stop and think about the implications of that. In the space of less than a year, Crist has collapsed from a 30-point polling lead to a 32-point deficit. Hell, even Roy Barnes didn’t do that badly against Sonny Perdue. PPP noted in its poll analysis:
It appears to be too late for Crist to change his mind about the Senate and just run for reelection either. 49% of voters say they would choose Bill McCollum in the primary if Crist decided to make another Gubernatorial race compared to only 35% who say they’d support the incumbent.
56% of GOP voters say they would like to see Crist out of public office a year from now, compared to 19% who would like to see him still as Governor and 14% who want him to be elected to the Senate.
“It’s been an amazing fall for Charlie Crist,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling.
We’ve said it before so I’ll say it quickly: Crist is not going to win the Republican Senate primary and even with the primary still five months away he is not going to overtake Rubio. Goodtime Charlie has been dropping hints that he may run as an independent candidate, but that’s not going to do it for him either.
If he wants to stay in elective office, Crist needs to get himself to the White House, pronto, and beg Rahm Emanuel (if Emanuel can take time off from screaming at Eric Massa in the House gym’s shower room) to schedule a news conference where President Barack Obama announces that Crist has now come over from the dark side and joined the Democratic Party. That’s the only winning scenario for him, at this point.
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