Florida Senate Take Two

I want to do an update on the Florida Senate race as it looks like things will be shaking up a bit in a few hours. What has been talked about as a possibility up until now looks like it's going to come to pass, namely, as the St. Petersburg Times is reporting, Charlie Christ should be announcing his run as an independent in the race for the open Florida Senate seat. He's been trailing Marco Rubio in the GOP Primary polling for quite some time and doesn't seem to be fond of the idea of losing out before the general election. Historically the game plan for federal elections in Florida has been to run to your base through the primary and then scramble back to the middle to get as many moderates as possible by the general. This is mainly because Florida is a wild state from the conservative panhandle and northern area along the Alabama and Georgia state lines down to the cosmopolitan city of Miami with its large block of hispanic voters and more liberal heads.

A three way race shakes this dynamic up considerably. With three candidates you only need a plurality under Florida election law to win. As best I know there are no runoffs or tie-brakers. This can be a huge advantage for Christ but also for Rubio and Kendrick Meek the likely Democratic challenger. In this instance there will be much more running to the base for Rubio and Meek because both sides can at least hypothetically get their candidates 34% of the vote where 51% was impossible. What this also does though is give Christ wide latitude to sweep up an odd man out coalition of moderate Republicans, true Independents, and Democrats disaffected by things that the Obama Administration has or hasn't done that they disapprove of. His main issues are going to be fundraising and creating a viable infrastructure to run on without the help of the GOP.

I think this is going to turn out to be an infinitely interesting race between now and November. I think it could tell us just how many moderate Republicans are out there, being drowned out by the Tea Party right now. And it could also give us a shot at a Democratic Senator from Florida.

Senate Races

It's taking a lot to get used to forming my own ideas to put on this blog. Give me a while to get into gear. In any case, I want to take a moment to talk about the Florida Senate race today. Or more specifically, the Republican primary between Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio. This is an issue that has been brewing for a while, and in some contexts can be seen as representative of the larger issue in the Republican Party right now. A lot of talking heads have been saying that this race is a metaphor for the larger divide between the mainstream Republican Party and the Tea Party movement. While I would contend that the "mainstream" of the GOP is not that far to the left of the Tea Partiers anymore, how they view themselves within the party is really the important part here. Anyway, this article is what got me thinking about this issue this morning.

First off, the simple fact that there are outside influences like Mike Pence all the way from Indiana dipping their fingers into this race already is a statement on how big this is going to get. Believe me, this is Daschle/Thune territory that we're working toward. And it's just a GOP primary. Secondly, this race says loads about our political climate. By all accounts Charlie Crist is an excellent governor in both the big and little "G" senses. He's well liked in Florida. To see him slipping so majorly this early to someone like Marco Rubio says a lot about how the country, and really more specifically the GOP is going these days. That said, a moment ago I said, "this early". It is still early. The primary isn't until August 24th. Any manner of things could happen to turn Crist's chances around beginning with a fizzle in the popularity of the Tea Party. Stuff like this, especially Tancredo's comments could very well do that. Rachel Maddow's excellent coverage is here. Likewise, as strange as it sounds, President Obama could be Crist's biggest ally right now. If the momentum the President has been building since his Question Time with Congressional Republicans continues into the summer, the Tea Party could look very bad and a moderate seem the more reasonable choice to Florida GOP voters.