Charlie Crist: I would have run as an independent even if I had led Rubio by 20 points in the primary

Fun fact: Tomorrow will mark 30 days since the last poll showing Rubio with less than a double-digit lead. Sunshine Charlie’s political career isn’t long for this world, in other words, so let’s enjoy the inimitable Crist style while we still can. I’ve asked this before but let me ask it again: Is there something clinically wrong with this guy that prevents him from copping to even patently obvious truths if he thinks it’ll damage him politically to do so? No one — no one — believes that he would have thrown away the GOP nomination and all the institutional support that would have come with it in favor of a crapshoot independent run unless he was forced. Offhand, I can’t think of a single candidate in political history who’s eschewed an easy primary win in favor of a much more difficult third-party candidacy. And of course, as the second clip below will remind you, Crist is doubly unbelievable on this point because he swore up and down to Chris Wallace on national television just a month before leaving the party that there was no way no how no chance he’d leave the party. And yet here we are. “Sure,” he says, sure I would’ve gone independent anyway. Sure he would.

I’ll be shocked if he hangs in there and rides the trends all the way to defeat in November. Maybe it’s not too late for him to make a deal with Obama and/or Meek to drop out and endorse Meek in return for some sort of political favor. Why not do it and get something out of what little political leverage he has left? In a few months he’ll be a private citizen without a party. Bad place to be for a careerist.

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