Charlie Crist, Always the Unprincipled Opportunist

Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Charlie Crist doesn’t want your vote if you’re a freedom-loving Floridian, but he’ll take your money if you’re an out-of-state defender of authoritarianism.

Mere days before Tuesday’s primary election, Crist, who currently represents Florida’s 13th congressional district, ran on a promise of unity.

“Who’s ready to build a Florida united?” he asked on Twitter.

But all talk of unity disappeared after he was officially declared the nominee.

“Those who support [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis should stay with him and vote for him and I don't want your vote,” he announced Wednesday. “If you have that hate in your heart, keep it there.”

It was Crist’s version of Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” speech, the one where she claimed to place supporters of then-candidate Donald Trump into a "basket of deplorables,” because "they're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.”

It didn’t work for Clinton, and it won’t work for Crist, as he quickly discovered.

About eight hours later the DeSantis War Room released a one-minute, 45-second video of ordinary Floridians, each telling Crist that they have nothing but love in their hearts.

They explain that they feel fortunate to live in a state that isn’t locked down, where they have no fear of losing their jobs due to mandates, where they’re grateful to be able to keep their businesses open, and go to school without requiring masks or vaccines.

The message from each smiling Floridian was the same: that they love the state and all its residents (including Crist, apparently) and especially Gov. DeSantis.

They may want to follow the video up with a T-shirt saying, “Charlie Crist does not want my vote.” They’d sell like hotcakes.

But while Crist claims he has no use for most of Florida’s voters, he has no problem taking money from out-of-staters, especially from out-of-staters with the same principles as his — which is to say no principles at all.

The infusion of cash came from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a fellow Democrat who shares Crist’s hatred of DeSantis, a name often brought up as a future Republican presidential nominee.

“Time to make Ron DeSantis a one-term governor,” he tweeted.

“I'm pledging $100k right now to @CharlieCrist. Who will join me in helping Charlie become the next Governor of Florida?”

Crist was all too eager to accept.

“Great to have you on Team Crist, @GavinNewsom!” he tweeted 48 minutes later.

“I've said it all along, DeSantis isn’t just a Florida problem. He wants to be president and force his radical right-wing views on the country. When we beat him this November, that show is OVER. Join us today.”

Those “radical right-wing views” include, but are not limited to:

• Keeping Florida schools open when other jurisdictions remained locked down

• Allowing Floridians to make their own choices about vaccinations and masks

• Requiring that public schools stick to teaching academics — no critical race theory, gender studies, or similar nonsense

• Assuring that Florida will no longer invest state funds in companies on the basis of what those companies do for the environment, social justice, or political (governance) issues (ESG)

But that donation may cost both Crist and Newsom much more than its $100,000 face value.

Christina Pushaw, the governor’s rapid response director, offered her own spot-on and rapid assessment: “Who needs opposition research when your opponents are like this?”

She added that it’s “so nice for Floridians that Charlie Crist said he doesn't want our votes, but he wants Gavin Newsom's money!”

The image for Crist is that he doesn’t want a majority of Floridians to vote for him, but he’ll accept out-of-state cash.

The image for Newsom isn’t any better. He announced that he’s flush enough to flush $100,000 in cash down the toilet on a losing campaign, while many Californians are financially strapped because of his continued lockdowns and mandates.

It’s all typical for Crist, whose only demonstration of loyalty has been to himself.

When Crist’s 2010 primary battle for the U.S. Senate against Marco Rubio began losing steam, he repeatedly insisted that he’s “running as a Republican.” When pressed by Chris Wallace if he was ruling out a third-party run, Crist responded, “That’s right.”

Less than a month later, when he realized there was no path to victory in a primary run against Rubio, he renounced his affiliation with the GOP and ran in the general election as an independent. It didn’t work.

But that’s Charlie Crist: no principles, no loyalty and always an opportunist.

Sorry Charlie: You got trounced in 2010, just as you’ll get trounced on November 8th of this year.