Charlie Crist, Florida Flimflam Man
27th August 2022
And perfect Democrat candidate!
“I became a Democrat because I am sincere.” So insisted Florida gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist while campaigning earlier this year. Crist is so sincere, in fact, that he is the only person in American history to have run for state-level elective office as a Republican, Democrat, and an independent. He has lost at least once in all three guises.
Crist has been pro-life and pro-abortion. He has opposed and supported LGBTQ rights. He has opposed tax increases and raised taxes. He has been for and against gun control. He has wanted to repeal and to maintain Obamacare. As Buzzfeed accurately put it the last time Crist ran for governor in 2014, “there is almost nothing Charlie Crist hasn’t flip-flopped on.”
Florida Democrats don’t seem to mind Crist’s shapeshifting or his staggering, career-long lack of political conviction. In the August 23 primary election, he soundly defeated Florida agriculture commissioner Nikki Fried — the only Democrat who holds statewide office — receiving 60 percent of the vote. In November, he will face Governor Ron DeSantis in the general election in what is easily the nation’s most important gubernatorial election in living memory.