Crist losing his mojo: Politico

Six months ago, Charlie Crist looked like he could do no wrong.  He had built a remarkable job-approval rating as Florida’s governor and looked like a shoo-in to hold the state in the red column.  Then Crist decided to run for the Senate instead, hoping to replace the retiring Mel Martinez (R), and got an endorsement from the NRSC within hours even though conservative Marco Rubio had already filed to run for the nomination.  Six months later, Crist suddenly looks vulnerable, and as Politico reports, he only has himself to blame:

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is witnessing a sharp downturn in his political fortunes, imperiling his standing as the presumptive next senator from Florida and leaving Washington and Tallahassee wondering if the seemingly invincible Republican has lost his way.

Even after a series of self-inflicted wounds — ranging from his dubious assertion that he never endorsed President Barack Obama’s stimulus to the departure of a longtime communications director — and a slide in the polls, Crist remains the undisputed front-runner against GOP primary opponent Marco Rubio, the former state House speaker.

But there is little question that battleship Crist has sprung a leak.

“Charlie Crist is a remarkable natural politician who has had enormous success at the ballot box over time. However, there is a sense among some Republicans out there that he has lost his mojo,” said Rick Wilson, a Florida Republican strategist.

“Until a month and a half ago, it was a nonrace. Now it’s a race. And it has all to do with Charlie Crist himself,” said Brett Doster, a Tallahassee-based GOP strategist. “It’s, figure out how quickly you can take a gun and put it down your leg and shoot yourself.”

Most of Crist’s self-inflicted damage comes from two decisions this year, both having to do with Barack Obama.  When Obama was riding high in the polls in Florida, Crist tried hitching his wagon to Obama on Porkulus in order to ride Obama’s coattails.  He also wanted to show Floridians that he was a “pragmatist” as opposed to an ideologue, and both endorsed and campaigned for Porkulus because Crist said it would curb unemployment and benefit Florida’s economy.

Now that Porkulus has been an obvious flop, Crist suddenly looks a lot more like an opportunist than a pragmatist.  Rather than just admit that he was wrong about the stimulus package, Crist gave Floridians little credit for either memory or intelligence by claiming that he’d never endorsed it at all.  The Rubio campaign wasted little time in showing that Crist was lying through his teeth:

If a politician wants to “lose his mojo,” he can’t do it any better than to lie and insult the intelligence of voters. Instead of simply admitting he got it wrong, which would have at least protected his credibility while acknowledging a failure in judgment, Floridians now have good reason to distrust Crist’s honesty as well. Meanwhile, Rubio got the initial policy position correct, and looks a lot more honest than Crist.

Crist still leads in Florida, and the race is far from over. However, voters will remember Crist’s incompetence and dishonesty, which will eat away at his support, especially among Republican primary voters. It was Crist’s race to lose all along, and he’s done about as well as anyone ever has in losing it.

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