New Crist Endorsement Flummoxes Florida Democrats

An endorsement from the “Fire Breathing Liberal” himself has upped the hang-wringing quotient among Florida Democrats who buy into the false premise that they must defeat Gov. Charlie Crist in the U.S. Senate race.

Former U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-South Florida) came out in support of Crist over the weekend.

“There is a special time in which elected officials have to put country before party, and this is one of those times,” the seven-term congressman told a crowd of his former constituents at Century Village west of Boca Raton. “I am here to endorse Gov. Charlie Crist because he has earned it. He has truly earned it.”

Almost every traditional shorthand measure for this election fails us

How Crist “earned it” is anyone’s guess, although he has shown signs of being a vertebrate with election-year vetoes of egregious legislation passed by Florida’s Republican-majority lawmakers. Still, Democrats expected Wexler to endorse U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, whose tagline since Crist went no party affiliation (NPA) is that he is a “lifelong Democrat.”

The often overlooked detail in the three-way race between the newly NPA Crist, the Democrat Meek, and the Tea Party Republican Marco Rubio is that all that has to happen for Rubio not to be the next U.S. Senator from Florida is for him to capture less than 33 percent of the vote. So Democrats can vote for Crist or Meek, just so long as they don’t vote for Rubio.

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