Watch any press conference or stump speech by Charlie Crist during this 2022 election season, and one overriding theme will stand out among all of his talking points: Crist believes he deserves your vote because Ron DeSantis is too power hungry and too ambitious for higher office to care about every day average Floridians. The irony is that Crist is the ultimate example of a calculated career politician who has shown an endless thirst to ascend to higher office, even when he called governor’s mansion his home.
In each of Charlie Crist’s campaigns for statewide office, he’s portrayed himself as a uniter. The one area where Crist gets Democrats and Republicans to agree is about the fact that Crist’s ambition for higher office has always been obvious. Florida has experienced an influx of new residents unrivaled by almost every other state with the exception of Texas, and as a result, many new residents and young voters aren’t familiar with Charlie Crist’s political career. When Crist served as Jeb Bush’s education commissioner, he wasn’t satisfied and ran for Florida Attorney General in the late 90’s, so nobody was surprised when Crist ran for governor in 2006, after Bush termed-out. Crist won the 2006 Florida Gubernatorial race but before his first term was complete, he was already campaigning for a seat in the U.S. Senate. This is where Charlie Crist desperately hopes you stop reading.
In Crist’s third year in his lone term as Florida governor, a major opportunity arose when former Senator Mel Martinez announced he would be retiring from office before finishing his term. As governor, Crist’s duties included appointing interim Senators. When the time came to make the appointment, Crist chose someone who not only had no experience in elected office, but was Crist’s own chief of staff, George LeMieux, a man whom Crist had previously dismissed as unqualified for such a high office.
Why did Crist have the sudden change of heart after an impromptu meeting in the middle of the night at a WHATABURGER fast food restaurant in Tallahassee?
“Insiders have long wondered why Crist bypassed big names like Jacksonville Mayor John Delaney, U.S. Rep Bill Young and his own lieutenant governor, Jeff Kottkamp. Crist instead chose LeMieux, his onetime chief of staff, who had never held elected office.” – Tampa Bay Times article.
A potential explanation became obvious after Crist declared his candidacy in 2009 for the very same senate seat where he appointed LeMieux. Unlike other potential appointees, LeMieux had experience as Crist’s most loyal staffer, and every political analysts called the move for what it was: A quid pro quo power play Crist utilized to effectively eliminate any major opposition in a Republican Primary Race for Martinez’s senate seat.
Consider the following:
• Crist knew LeMieux eagerly wanted to serve in the Senate but also knew LeMieux likely couldn’t win an election outright due to his lack of experience in office. Such inexperience would be remedied by serving as an interim Senator.
• LeMieux knew that he could run against Bill Nelson for the other senate seat that would be up for grabs in the 2012 election, and that campaign could begin almost immediately after serving as interim senator. (LeMieux did run for Nelson’s seat in 2012, only to lose to Connie Mack in the Republican Primary.)
• LeMieux knew that if he bowed out of 2010’s race, publicly thanked Crist for the opportunity to serve, and endorsed Crist vs any hypothetical Republican primary opposition, it would help Crist’s odds to win a Senate seat in 2010, especially if Crist’s approval numbers continued their downward trajectory. Logically, Crist would likely repay the favor by endorsing LeMieux in a primary vs. Republican primary candidates for the other Senate seat in 2012.
Clearly, LeMieux was the path of least resistance for Crist to the Senate in 2010, and both of them knew it. Crist could save a threatened political career and LeMieux could start his own.
Another important factor to keep in mind is that Florida was starting to see economic indicators of a housing market slide in 2007, and governors typically take the brunt of the blame for a state specific budget and economic issues, since Senators don’t touch state budgets and only legislate federal policies and federal spending. Charlie Crist’s emergency parachute was the U.S. Senate, but that backup plan was were obliterated thanks to a rising young star in the GOP by the name of Marco Rubio, who won over Republican primary voters to such a degree that Crist left the Republican Party in April of 2010, before the Republican Primary Election even occurred, to run as an independent. Crist went on to lose to Rubio by nearly 20 points in the 2010 Midterm election.
On November 1, 2013, Crist filed to run for governor as a Democrat. He won the Democratic nomination but was defeated in the general election by Republican incumbent Rick Scott. Crist holds the rare distinction of losing a statewide general election in Florida as a Republican, a Democrat and an Independent. Crist’s highlight of the past decade came in 2016, when he defeated Republican Congressman David Jolly in the former Florida’s district-wide race in his hometown county for Congress in 2016, his lone victory in the past 16 years.
Barring major changes in voter sentiment over the next few weeks, Crist is headed toward a third-statewide election loss. Should Crist lost that election, it would be hard to imagine another statewide campaign in his future, unless he wants to become the Buffalo Bills of Florida politicians.
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Since 2004, O’Hern has worked with political campaigns in roles ranging from major projects involving nationwide digital marketing for U.S. Presidential candidates, U.S. Congressmen, state governors, and state representatives. O’Hern’s journalism background includes news reporting and editing for various organizations and news publications in Alabama and Florida since 2002. O’Hern graduated from Samford University in Birmingham, Ala with a degree in journalism and a minor in political science.