What kind of moron is Charlie Crist?
In the past week, the Republican-turned-Independent-turned-Democrat labeled half of his constituents as “haters,” tapped a teachers union leader as his second in command, and defended President Joe Biden after he called half of the country “semi-fascists.”
It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off for him.
We’ll focus on Crist’s latest comments on Monday first, then break down the rest of the peculiar campaign strategy.
While appearing on CNN, Crist claimed that the president was just being “honest” when he labeled “MAGA Republicans” as a bunch of semi-fascists threats to the rule of law.
“I think what’s important is to state the facts as they are,” Crist said in response to a clip of Biden’s comments. “He’s gotta be honest and express what he feels in his heart and his soul, and I think that’s probably exactly what he did.”
In the words of Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” Biden feeling “in his heart” that MAGA Republicans (which appear to account for large swath of the GOP) are semi-fascists doesn’t make it so. Furthermore, is Crist aware that Trump carried Florida in both 2016 and 2020? Why would Sunshine State voters support a man who won’t defend them from being blasted as semi-fascists?
Well, the answer to that question lies in Crist’s public comments about voters who support Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R): He’s told them that he doesn’t even want their votes.
“Those who support the governor should stay with him and vote for him, and I don’t want your vote,” Crist said earlier this week. “If you have that hate in your heart, keep it there!”
“I want the vote of the people of Florida who care about our state: good Democrats, good independents, good Republicans,” Crist added. “Unify with this ticket. Unify with Val Demings and Charlie Crist. Unify with us. Those who are haters? You’re going to go off in your own world, and you better get right.”
But that strategy could backfire, and in a big way. According to one poll, DeSantis is beating Crist by 5 percentage points. In 2018, DeSantis earned 4,076,186 votes. Since then, more Republicans have entered the state.
What kind of a candidate tells more than four million people to not vote for him?
Likewise, just days after Miami-Dade elected a conservative school board — populated with DeSantis-endorsed candidates — Crist chose the president of the Dade Teachers Union to be his running mate. Karla Hernández-Mats, the teachers union president, is outspokenly against DeSantis’s anti-woke agenda.
“Teachers didn’t go into this profession to be politicized. We’re truth-tellers,” she told CBS this summer. “We don’t believe in banning books …We see all these different culture wars from Governor DeSantis and really extreme legislators in Tallahassee that are impacting our school system.”
Crist seems to think those sorts of stances will help his chances.
Yet a recent poll indicates that, actually, Florida residents — especially Hispanic voters and blue-collar workers — appear to side with DeSantis in the fight against the cultural attacks from the Left.
USA Today recently reported that a “Florida survey found that 52% of Florida voters approve of the governor’s focus on culture issues — such as gender identity, sexual orientation and race — in schools and businesses and 47% disapprove.”
Democrats overwhelmingly oppose those efforts, yet 52% of independents support him. Furthermore, a whopping 54% of voters without a college degree and 60% of Hispanic voters support him as well.
The thing about Crist is that he has never been driven by ideological principles. It isn’t as if he has held these Leftist views his entire career like Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) or former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
He appears to be far more driven more by whatever he thinks can get him elected than any adherence to specific political platform.
All that being said, why wouldn’t he fake political views that are more aligned with Florida voters?
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.