So I see Charlie Crist made it official. Color me unsurprised. Crist wasn’t a terrible governor. Unlike the evil rat-bastard who succeeded him, Crist actually viewed voting as a right even for non-Republicans and expanded ballot access during his tenure, measures that were rolled back by the aforementioned rat-bastard.
Crist was on the non-lunatic side during the shameful Terri Schiavo circus. He sided with teachers against the bill backed by edu-corp vultures like his former boss Jeb(!). And of course, Crist campaigned hard for Obama and might have actually made a difference in the squeaker outcome here in Florida.
Would Crist be a huge improvement over current Governor Voldemort should he choose to run against The Dark Lord in 2014? Well, yes. As far as we know, Crist doesn’t store his fragmented soul in a series of hidden Horcruxes, and he’s never delivered a State of the State address in Parseltongue.
But does anyone doubt for a second that if Crist had beaten Rubio in the GOP primary and become Republican Senator Crist, he would have been campaigning his ass off for Romney this year? Of course he would have. He’s not really a Democrat; he’s an opportunist.
Scott is less popular in Florida than citrus canker, so it seems like this would be an ideal opportunity to run an actual, honest-to-god Democrat for the state’s top office. But given the state of the Florida Democratic Party, Crist is probably the best we can hope for. I’ll damn sure vote for him if it comes to that.
[X-posted at Rumproast]
Davis X. Machina
Be careful what you wish for. A three-way (actually five-way) race in Maine got us a Teabag governor with a 37% mandate. I can see Scott hanging on with that kind of math.
Thank God we flipped both Houses of the legislature in November — but there’s still a lot of administrative damage LePage can do, and he has the votes to sustain any veto.
The Other Bob
Still looking for a link to the post where John Cole made the switch.
Full Metal Wingnut
I mean, a politician as an opportunist? That’s a truism. I know, I know, we need perspective on this, but eh.
Ben Franklin
http://americablog.com/2012/12/why-do-democrats-always-ask-for-small-items-when-negotiating-fiscal-cliff.html
Republicans should be begging Obama to not raise the margin tax rates to Eisenhower era rates– when top earners paid 91% on the millions they made and the whole concept of sociopathic-criminal plutocracy was a structural impossibility in America. Instead, we’re being prepared for Democrats bartering away pieces of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in return for… for what? The temporary Bush tax cuts that are due to expire on December 31 anyway?
Why isn’t the national discussion about hiking the estate tax? Why isn’t it about ending the cap on the Social Security tax and on really growth-positive moves like lowering the age of retirement and expanding Medicare so that everyone is in the pool?
Why isn’t the discussion about taxing all income equally, both what people make from working and what they get from clipping coupons? How about that Wall Street transaction tax and a tax to make hedge fund predators pay their fair share like everyone else?
Krugman thinks Adelson/Koch fared better on their return on investment than previously thought.
It’s a Win/Win.
Yutsano
Jeb! is always with the exclamation mark. That’s how you know to focus on his first name and not his last.
eemom
@The Other Bob:
I think it’s on eBay.
Walker
@The Other Bob:
It is not a single post. The “I just registered as Democrat” post comes much later than the “this party is crazy” post.
Davis X. Machina
@Yutsano: The last time he ran, people were stealing his yard signs and selling them in Poland to decorate dorm rooms
BGinCHI
Nobody damns with faint praise better than Betty.
reflectionephemeral
Well to be fair, he is kinda orange.
I don’t care what’s in a politician’s heart of hearts, personally. Sure, Crist is an opportunist. It’s the nature of politics. As long as we’re clear on the policies he’s likely to prioritize and implement, I’m happy.
Hawes
I guess Crist was just bipartisan curious.
JGabriel
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Betty Cracker @ Top:
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I don’t know. If he was still a Republican, of course, but I wonder if Crist would have eventually gone independent anyway, like Jeffords did.
As a comparatively moderate Republican, I’m not sure Crist would have remained comfortable in the GOP even if he had been elected to the senate. Without a doubt, even if he’d won, he’d have been primaried by a Teabagger when he came up for re-election.
.
Felonius Monk
JPL
@The Other Bob: Cole had been evolving over time as the repubs went into the land of creationism but the Schiavo affair finalized his thought process. link
Since then he’s become an obot.
Hoodie
Really? Is there some kind of virginity standard for being a Democrat, like you can’t realize that you were hanging around with the wrong folks and decide to make up for that?
Woodrowfan
@Hawes: WIN! Where would you like your internet delivered??
Betty Cracker
@Felonius Monk: Fair point, and I think it’s true that all politicians are opportunists. I’m perfectly comfortable with compromising and half loaves. But I’m not sure Crist has a set of core beliefs other than that Charlie Crist should be an elected official.
I think he misread the mood in 2010 and would have been willing to be more tea-baggy if he’d understood that’s what was required in the primary. But better a weathercock than an beady-eyed, evil crook, so I’m perfectly willing to vote for Crist.
Frankensteinbeck
@Ben Franklin:
Krugman is a brilliant economist. He’s a poor-to-awful political pundit who has been consistently wrong in his predictions of what Obama and the Democrats in general will do or want to do. He has the right priorities, but god damn the man is a doomsayer.
JGabriel
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The Other Bob:
Here you go:
Say Hello to the Newest Member of the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy
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Baud
The other thing to keep in mind is that politicians are influenced simply as a result of placing themselves within one party over the other, and by the coalitions they need to build within that party. Crist isn’t going to become Che, but Crist the Democrat isn’t necessarily the same person as Crist the Republican was.
Ben Franklin
@Frankensteinbeck:
the man is a doomsayer.
Mebbe so, but he’s not the only one nervous about past patterns of behavior, and he does have sources. Of course, they could be lowering the bar a little, then we’ll all be happy about what we got, compared to the doom.
jheartney
If you followed the progress of Arlen Specter, after an entirely opportunistic switchover from R to D (he was about to lose to a teabagger in the primary), he became a pretty standard Democrat for the short length of time he was still a Senator.
The conditions of our current politics tend to make partisans of our elected officials. Aside from the Broderite DC political class (who aren’t constituents), there’s not a lot of support to be had by being politically incoherent. Even Blue Dogs like my own Senator McCaskill have to be obedient obots at crunch time.
FlipYrWhig
@Ben Franklin: I’m very skeptical of this tendency in the blogosphere to treat all news stories as “trial balloons” intended to prime “us” for an impending policy shift, that is unless “we” scream about it enough. This whole episode sounds like the opposite case: it’s wonks being wonks, speculating about what could be traded for what, like offseason baseball fans wishing for an interesting free agent signing or something. It’s so much more in the spirit of “You know what would be great?” And so much less in the spirit of “insiders tell me what’s about to go down.” So it seems like the right reaction is “that idea sucks,” as opposed to “I expect that pissant Obama to totally do it.”
Spaghetti Lee
Priority number one: Get Rick Scott out of office. (Priority number two: Get him in jail.)
What if Crist ran in 2014 and picked a longtime Dem as Lieutenant Gov?
JWL
It’s an interesting dynamic that must vary from state to state. I’ve made mention before of what’s happened to California’s republican party over the past twenty years, i.e., the inmates took over the asylum, and sensible people who used to vote republican simply won’t consider it anymore. That’s why Willie Brown calls Barbara Boxer the luckiest politician he’s ever seen, in that she could definitely have been defeated in a general election against a republican of yesteryear. But it ain’t yesteryear no more. She will have served 24 years at the expiration of her most recent term. It makes it a shame, too, that the the democratic party has shackled itself to Feinsten at this point (she was just re-elected). Dianne is-and-has-always-been a republican. A genuine democrat running in a general election for that seat would stand an excellent chance of winning.
Jackie
As a SoFL resident from my earliest childhood political awakenings, I remember there not being much difference between Republican and Democratic governors for the last 40 or so years. All were pretty moderate, with some leaning a bit left as Democrats and others a bit right as Republicans. But, not much changed from governor to governor. The nut job politicians basically stayed in Lee County or up in the panhandle. Recent events are an aberration from longtime pattern. I am hopeful that things will return to normal in the near future.
MattF
Remember how Southern Dems all suddenly realized that they were really Republicans? It was a sign of the times that certainly had something to do with getting re-elected, but it also had something to do with their political views and (to be blunt about it) their race. The fact that an actual Florida politician thinks now that it’s an advantage to be a Democrat is also a sign of the times, and a good sign, all by itself.
Shalimar
@Betty Cracker: I agree with you that Crist isn’t someone who necessarily has a core. I see him as pretty similar to Ben Nelson in that respect when it comes to results going forward though. Neither is remotely close to perfect, but neither is going to screw poor people over for fun like your average Republican will either.
Arm The Homeless
Yes, Betty, but who exactly would run for the Dems that has any sort of state-wide profile? Sobel? Rich? Sink?
Florida has very little int he way of an organized progressive movement. This state really is Miami-Metro and everyone else.
even if Crist was elected, his entire term would be a rear-guard movement just putting out the fires that the House and Senate set for him. On the bright side, other than going the way of Mississippi on abortion, what more can the conservatives really push through here? Would Crist’s entire term be spent just trying to undo SYG and RTW? because that’s all I see that might unite Dems across the state, and even that might be pie-in-the-sky.
Paul
Perhaps. But can’t you could say that about EVERY Democrat?
How about Hillary Clinton who voted for the Iraq war. She thought at the time that that would make her look more a like a hawk, which at the time may have looked wise to her. She was being an opportunist
Or how about Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar who both voted against closing Gitmo because they were afraid of the “soft on terrorism” label. They were being opportunists.
I remember Jeb Bush and how he went out of his way to go after Michael Schiavo. Bush used government resources to try to indict him. Mr Crist is miles and miles better than Bush was.
Is Crist a perfect Democrat? Of course not. But neither is Sanders, Klobuchar or Clinton. If you criticize Crist, you also have to criticize EVERY Democrat out there.
Finally, I recall how people on the left were angry when Arlen Specter switched parties and eventually primaried him. They claimed he wasn’t a perfect Democrat. Well, of course, now the seat belongs to a Republican. Is the left going to do the same mistake with Crist?
Origuy
@JPL: Off topic, but did you see I replied to your comment about a cook on the Nevada at Pearl Harbor yesterday?
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker:
There’s the example of the wave of southern politicians who switched in 1994 or soon thereafter from being democrats to being republicans, which to some extent (as with Crist) stemmed from long-building discomfort with the prevailing direction their long-time political home had evolved toward, but to a greater extent they seized an opportunistic moment jump through a window to the GOP while the move still came across as principled to conservative voters, before the window begin to close and such a move would begin to look more like a cynical survival move than one of principle.
OK, so we don’t much like the “principles” of Richard Shelby of Alabama or Phil Gramm of Texas when they switched. But the point is both that the functional dynamic is similar to what induced Crist to jump, and also that the net effect in each case was the switch of a strategically valuable, effective politician from one party to the other, even though their political “effectivenss” was in service of destrucive ends.
Peter
@JGabriel: After reading this I decides to go hunting the archive for John’s thoughts on the Schiavo case. I couldn’t find them, but What I did find was like stepping into the twilight zone.
And then John linked to a David Warren article and I exploded into incoherent rage. I hate nobody the way I hate Davis Warren.
Brachiator
@Ben Franklin:
Yawn. The House writes the money bills. Obama cannot raise tax rates unilaterally.
And under this twisted revisionist history, there was no plutocracy in America until JFK signed legislation that lowered the top tax rates.
Let’s hope Crist makes the most of his opportunity. And in the spirit of the holidays, remember that a convert must be treated the same as someone who was born a Democrat.
Betty Cracker
@Arm The Homeless: I think former Tampa mayor Pam Iorio would be great, but she doesn’t have much of a statewide profile, and there’s no sign she even wants the job. The state party apparatus is just pathetic. Given that, Crist might be the best we can do. I certainly think he’d whip Scott’s ass, and that’s Job #1.
@Paul: Actually, I don’t think EVERY single Democrat is a weathercock on the scale of Crist. All are opportunists to some extent, and none will live up to our expectations on every issue, of course. But there are politicians out there with more core principles than Crist.
The question is, will any of them run, and could they win? I don’t see any on the horizon, unfortunately. Sink had her shot, and she couldn’t even beat that lowlife snake Scott, so I hope she doesn’t run again.
In any case, I’ll be happy to vote for Crist over Scott since I’m not insane.
JWL
@Jackie: Again, what has happened out here (in California) is no aberration- it is what it is. Hard core republican nuts have basically ceded real power/state offices for two decades in the name of political purity. Floridian republicans may be more accommodating towards dissent within their ranks. Or it it could be they’re going the way of California. Frankly, I believe the national GOP has already gone off the track and around the bend, and it’s not coming back. California helped lead the way, is all.
Paul
@Betty Cracker:
Part of Sink’s problem was that she ran in 2010 when for whatever reason (teaching Obama a lesson or whatever their grudge was) Democrats decided it was a great idea not to vote.
A lot of decent Democrats lost that year.
I have yet to meet a Democrat (or any pol for that matter) who is not an opportunist. It doesn’t matter whether it is Sanders or Specter.
Betty Cracker
@Paul: It probably didn’t help that Sink was a Bank of America executive during a financial meltdown either. Don’t get me wrong, I voted for her. But I think she was the wrong candidate for that time. I realize it was a Republican wave election, but Scott was an obvious crook and very beatable. Sink was a lousy candidate.
Brachiator
@JWL:
This doesn’t mean anything until an actual person tries to go up against the senator. And I doubt that the California Democratic Party would support any challenger trying to rise up within the party who would try to run against her.
Steeplejack
@Ben Franklin:
Do you have any source for this, because there sure isn’t one at your link.
And why link to AmericaBlog when the entire quote is from another source (which also doesn’t mention Krugman)?
Haydnseek
Chuck is a Democrat? Yeah, and Arnold Schwarzenegger was a Kennedy……..
Triassic Sands
There are two reasons why I wouldn’t/don’t welcome Crist into the Democratic Party.
First, the more of his persuasion who join the Democratic Party the more conservative it gets — I see that as a very bad thing.
Second, if every half-way sane Republican leaves the GOP, then that party just keeps getting more and more radical, something that is also very bad. I suppose the argument could be made that if the GOP continues its lurch rightward they will make themselves unelectable. That might be true on the national scene, but they’ll still be electing governors and state legislatures that will rule over states that are increasingly horrible places. Since those states are likely to be concentrated in the deep south (unless immigration and immigrant birth rates intervene) and the Midwest, we will end up with a disastrously divided country — possibly much worse than what we have now.
In the end, I’m quite ambivalent.
Ben Franklin
@Steeplejack:
The article you complain isn’t the source, is indeed linking to the source.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/i-hope-this-isnt-true/
Because if Obama really does make this deal, there will be hell to pay.@Steeplejack:
Darkrose
@JWL: I really thought DiFi was going to retire. /sigh
Mnemosyne
@Ben Franklin:
I guess you missed John’s front page post about this exact same Krugman article, huh? Yanno, the one that’s still on the front page and has 210 comments?
ETA: It even uses the exact same quote, which just adds to the comedy.
gene108
@Paul:
In a non-wave election, Sestak would’ve been a strong candidate for the Senate and most likely would’ve won.
As it was, Toomey won with just 51% of the vote against Sestak’s 49% in the biggest Congressional wave election for Republicans in a generation.
Specter probably wouldn’t have done any better against Toomey in 2010.
p.a.
As the news from Michigan shows, gubernatorial races are as important as the races for who goes to DC. If Christ can win and snuff out vote suppression moves and set up a state insurance exchange, great. I’ll take ‘our’ opportunists over theirs anytime. What is 2014 like in gov. races? How many D are up, how many R?
Maude
@Triassic Sands:
In a way it’s like the Reagan Democrats. They thought it would be a good idea to give Reganomics a chance. They also thought that letting S&Ls have leeway was a great idea.
The part hasn’t quite recovered from that. It seems to be heading toward less stupid ideas, but you can never tell.
Loviatar
.
With my small change we could use this statement to describe John Cole and many of the Obots on this site.
PaulW
I volunteered for Crist’s campaign for Senate in 2010. I think if it had been a two-person race between just Rubio and Crist (if Crist went full Dem back then)… well, Rubio still would have won by 3-4 points because the damn teabaggers were out in force that election cycle.
Is Crist being opportunistic? Yes. But there’s nothing wrong with that: I view both Clintons as opportunistic and ambitious as well. What counts is the pol’s intent once in office. Romney is just as opportunistic as every other politician out there, but you could tell by his intent (tax cuts, tax cuts, appeasing the wingnuts, and more tax cuts) that his ambition was TOO self-serving.
If Crist runs for governor, this time as a Democrat, it will be a clear two-party race and the odds – and the personality differences and established track records – will clearly be in Crist’s corner.
Yutsano
@Loviatar: PURITY UBER ALLES! Determined by you of course.
Ben
Crist is probably the best candidate Democrats can get…I don’t see any other person who can step up and take out Scott.
gf120581
Question to Florida natives; is there any chance of a primary challenge materialzing against Scott? The FL GOP has to be aware of how unpopular he is and that he’d likely be a sitting duck against someone with Crist’s popularity. Is there anyone who might take the plunge against Skeletor?
As for Crist, I have no doubt he’s an opportunist (Game Change had a very revealing passage about how he backstabbed Rudy Guliani after pledging to back him in Florida), but really, he should have switched parties long ago. Even when he was governor he seemed like a typical moderate Southern Democrat to me. And once he embraced Obama, his fate was pretty much assured.
Incidentally, what do conservatives want GOP governors to do when they meet Obama? Do the Jan Brewer finger wave in his face? Spit on his shoes? Sucker-punch him? Knee him in the groin?
Ben Franklin
@Mnemosyne:
just adds to the comedy.
said the barfly…….
Paul
@gene108:
Who knows. What we do know is that there was a hard-fought Democratic. primary. Without a primary, perhaps Specter could have focused his resources on the GE earlier and had had a better chance. And he was the incumbent with all of the benefits that usually comes with it. Instead, the winner of the primary was a challenger who came in to the GE bruised.
@Triassic Sands:
I am former Republican. I left the party in 2002 when it became clear that the party had become hijacked by bigots, and fake Christians among others. Since then I have both volunteered and contributed money to Democratic candidates.
There are obviously many people like me. If we are not welcome in your party, we can always leave. Good luck winning elections without people like us.
By the way, look how well 2010 went when the so called “true Democrats” decided not to vote because President Obama hadn’t done everything they had expected.
Loviatar
@Paul:
.
Simple question:
How come you left your former party instead of fighting to save it?
I have yet to get an answer (any answer will do) from all the former “Republicans” on this site.
Paul
@Loviatar:
Why should I fight to save it? A political party is not like a country. Yes, if it was the USA I would stay to fight to save it. But by 2002, the Democratic party was closer to my political viewpoints than the GOP. As a matter of fact, by then it wasn’t even close. So, I guess to use your terminology, I had fought to save it for some time. But when they stood unified in Congress for the Iraq war, I was officially done. They had abandoned what the claimed they stood for.
Loviatar
@Paul:
In a two party system the choice should be between two sane parties, not an insane party and a catchall party full of opportunists.
I don’t dislike the Obots because of their policy preferences, I dislike them for the fact that they’ve fucked over the country with their political preferences. First they fucked over their party by making bed with the crazies and then when the crazies took over their party instead of fighting they ran and are now fucking up the other party. By your political preferences, you’ve caused me to fear for my country if we end up with a Republican president in our near future.
Go back and fight for your former party, wrench it from the insane to the sane, give me a choice I can live with, not happy with, just live with.
Paul
@Loviatar:
You do realize I could say the same thing about people that are part of the left wing of the Democratic party. Instead of (as you put it) fighting for their party, they just took their ball and went home in the 2010 election. Hell, I remember vividly reading recommended diaries on dailykos urging people not to vote in order to send Obama a lesson. What great advice! In a gerry-mander year! The House of reps are now screwed for the next 10 years…
Loviatar
@Paul:
I ignored this stupid crap when you wrote it earlier because I thought this had been debunked and was commonly understood to a false statement. I guess I was wrong, some reading for you:
Facts & Numbers
Voter Turnout in the 2010 Midterm Election pg. 7
.
Liberal Spin
What really happened in the 2010 election
.
Conservative Spin
A Look at Voter Turnout and Enthusiasm
.
————
.
Summary
The voter turnout for the 2010 midterm elections was about average for both parties. This scenario usually results in a loss of seats for the party in power as the party out of power has more of a reason to turnout their voters.
In other words liberals/lefties didn’t cause the Democrats to lose seats, it was typical political trends.
Matt McIrvin
@Paul: I don’t think there was any grudge in 2010. The problem is that American voters, and especially Democrats, usually tune out for midterm elections unless they’re extraordinarily motivated. Democratic turnout for 2010 was completely normal for a midterm election; it was just that the Republicans were having Tea Party fever.
Loviatar
@Matt McIrvin:
Wrote a post with links saying exactly that, however its caught in moderation.
You provide facts and you’re caught in moderation. You don’t and you’re derided as unserious and a firebagger. I guess you can’t win with Obots <a href="“> ;>)
Randy P
@Loviatar: We’ve seen sane Republicans who already had political power get driven out and primaried one by one.
What would this “fight for the party” look like exactly?
Loviatar
@Randy P:
I’ll use Paul’s words with a slight change.
Since then I have both volunteered and contributed money to
Democraticsane Republicans candidates.Loviatar
@Randy P:
Don’t support the whackadoodles.
Republicans just lockstepped voted for the guy with the ( R ) behind his name no matter what and eventually they lost their party to the neo racist, christinist and economic nihilist.
Forum Transmitted Disease
You get this kind of Democrat in Florida or no Democrat at all.
Telling Specter to go fuck himself won Pat Tommey a lifetime appointment in the US Senate. Shall we go 2 for 2, or try to win for fucking once?
Loviatar
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Here is a list of Pat Tommey’s votes Pat Toomey on the Issues.
Now, you’re a sane voter, someone who cares about their country and lets call you generic white guy republican, you won’t vote for a Democrat, so do you vote for this guy or do you say to yourself I’d rather not vote than see this guy reelected. Unfortunately, far too many generic white guy republican see ( R ) and vote for Tommey.
I don’t think you need to convince someone to vote Democratic, you just need to convince them to stay home. In today’s environment a non-vote is just as important as a vote for your opponent. The Republican’s figured this out in 2006 and see their redoubled efforts with 2012 voter suppression laws.
Would this work in Florida, don’t know, it would take money, volunteers and dedication from Republicans to convince their peers to stay home for the good of the party and eventually thecountry. But hey lets vote for the most opportunistic former Republican we can find, thats worked so well for the country so far.
Peter
Loviator, by that standard, why don’t YOU jump into the Republican party and try to save it from within? Why is the moral onus on Paul to rescue it when you are every bit as capable?
Full Metal Wingnut
@Peter: Because it’s more fun to be sanctimonious.
rikyrah
Crist is a human oil slick.
but, he does believe in voting rights.
While I wouldn’t think he’d be a good Democrat in a blue state…this is Florida, so he might be the best the Dems could do.
Paul
@Loviatar:
Amazing! You don’t even know me, yet you claim to know who I have donated time and money to. Hell, I didn’t know that Al Franken (whose campaign I assisted) was a
Democraticsane Republican candidate.Have a nice day, pal!
PanurgeATL
@Loviatar:
And losing the House itself wouldn’t cause the gerrymandering; losing state legislatures would so that, because AIUI they’re the ones who supervise the process of setting district boundaries. Considering GOP voter motivation in 2010, I suppose they captured some of those, too–I know my home state of Georgia is under firm GOP control for the foreseeable future.
And that’s what trying to be clever and canny and too dedicated to “picking your battles” eventually does to you.