Crist can't take conservative heat; bails on GOP in Florida

By Rick Moran

Is Charlie Crist insane?

No - just a shameless waste of a politician who, after being overwhelmingly rejected by GOP voters in favor of Marco Rubio, has suddenly discovered how corrupt the two party system is! Crist made it official today, announcing his doomed independent run for the Florida senate today.

Allah at Hot Air:

The other question o' the day is whether he can win. Larry Sabato thinks he's got a slim chance, but check the math in this post by Ben Smith. To have a credible shot, he needs 35 percent of Republicans and 30 percent of Democrats, which almost certainly isn't happening. Which brings me to Jay Cost's spot-on analysis on why Crist is simply insane to run this year instead of cooling off and trying again in 2012. Some of it overlaps with things I've been saying lately, but the point about strategic voting bears quoting.

Crist actually called the White House a few days ago to see if he could get the Democrats to play both sides of the fence with he and Democratic challenger Kendrick Meek. The White House was having none of it, believing rightly that Crist will probably siphon off a few GOP votes from Rubio and give Meek a fighting chance in the general election.

I don't see it happening. Crist is damaged goods and if he gets more than 10% of the GOP vote I will be surprised. That won't be enough for the boring Mr. Meek who won't have the funding to compete with Rubio. It may be a closer race than otherwise but I think Rubio still gets more than 50% of the vote.