{"id":4008,"date":"2010-02-26T14:12:22","date_gmt":"2010-02-26T19:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=4008"},"modified":"2010-02-26T14:38:33","modified_gmt":"2010-02-26T19:38:33","slug":"charlie-crist-to-run-as-an-independent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/4008\/charlie-crist-to-run-as-an-independent\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Crist to Run as an Independent?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>That\u2019s the rumor coming out of <a href=\"http:\/\/weblogs.sun-sentinel.com\/news\/opinion\/theslant\/blog\/2010\/02\/will_charlie_crist_bolt_the_go.html \" target=\"_blank\">Florida Republican circles<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.redstate.com\/erick\/2010\/02\/25\/is-charlie-crist-about-to-flee-the-gop\/ \" target=\"_blank\">RedState\u2019s Erick Erickson<\/a>.\u00a0 Not that such a move would be too much of a surprise since Crist is still the sitting governor of Florida and is losing by 18% to former state house speaker, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marcorubio.com\/ \" target=\"_blank\">Marco Rubio<\/a>.\u00a0 He needs something to spice up his campaign, and going rogue would certainly do it.\u00a0 The question is, though, what kind of voter would Crist try to attract once he became un-tethered from a political party?<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t the same scenario that faced Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) when he ran as an independent after losing the Connecticut Democratic primary to Ned Lamont in 2006.\u00a0 There, netroots activists took over the election and alienated much of Lieberman\u2019s comparatively moderate base. \u00a0Lieberman was also aided by some not so subtle help from the Bush Administration seeing the Iraq War supporter as an ally on foreign affairs.\u00a0 Neither factor is present in this year\u2019s Florida U.S. Senate race.\u00a0 Not only is Rubio building the kind of following that could deliver a decisive victory among Republicans and Independents, there is no indication that the Obama Administration will coordinate with Crist to the detriment of the likely Democratic nominee, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kendrickmeek.com\/ \" target=\"_blank\">Kendrick Meek<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If Crist truly is considering leaving the GOP, he should instead \u201csuspend\u201d his campaign and concentrate on ending his one term as governor on as good a note as possible.\u00a0 Otherwise, he\u2019ll do further damage to his reputation while simultaneously wasting Floridians time and money on an ill-conceived vanity tour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That\u2019s the rumor coming out of Florida Republican circles and RedState\u2019s Erick Erickson.\u00a0 Not that such a move would be too much of a surprise since Crist is still the sitting governor of Florida and is losing by 18% to former state house speaker, Marco Rubio.\u00a0 He needs something to spice up his campaign, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[354,901,352,38],"class_list":["post-4008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-florida","tag-kendrick-meek","tag-marco-rubio","tag-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4008"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4012,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008\/revisions\/4012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}