Charlie Crist is almost certainly going to run for FL-13. …As a Democrat. …I THINK?

(Via @Aaron_RS) This is gonna be surreal.

Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist all but announced his intentions to run for Congress in a Tampa Bay-area House seat that will likely be redrawn to include his home, have more Democrats and lack an incumbent.

“If the new congressional map includes my home, I intend on running to serve the people again,” Crist said in a Twitter post on Monday afternoon.

As the story notes: this is not an Alan Grayson kind of situation.  A redrawn FL-13 is, on paper, a good fit for the former governor and former Republican and former Senatorial candidate and former Independent… who presumably will be staying a Democrat for this race, because that’s a lot of ‘formers.’ And with incumbent David Jolly deciding to run for Senate, Crist might actually win. Continue reading Charlie Crist is almost certainly going to run for FL-13. …As a Democrat. …I THINK?

And David Jolly (R) pretty much now a lock on winning FL-13 in November.

Normally you don’t want to say things like that; but in this particular case… it’s not that the Democrats had been reduced to supporting non-party candidate Ed Jany after Alex Sink abruptly indicated that she wouldn’t run again in that district. You can sometimes work around a problem like that, assuming that you have the right candidate. No, what makes this a bridge too far is that the Democrats don’t even have that candidate anymore:

More details on that here. Suffice it to say that the DCCC has pretty much defecated in the blankets on this one; it’s one thing to make bricks without straw, and quite another to make them without actual clay. One wonders if the DCCC is even going to keep trying on this one…

Moe Lane

You’ve probably heard by now…

…that David Jolly has won that special election in FL-13 over Alex Sink.  This was one of those races where I was expecting to find out the results about now, as opposed to forty minutes after the polls closed; the folks tabulating the votes earned their corn this evening.  Well done, people.

As to the larger meaning… what do you want it to be? Because it pretty much could mean  anything that you want it to mean. I’m reluctant to let this (or any other special election, really) validate anything, though; then again, I’m just happy that I don’t have to hear that silly Democratic brag anymore about how they always win special elections. Which is something that they used to say as frequently as they brag today about how they always win incumbent elections (we’re about to test that one to destruction, ya, you betcha)…

Moe Lane

So. Alex Sink’s people are stealing David Jolly signs, bragging about it on Twitter.

Astounding.

 

This is, of course:

  1. illegal;
  2. pointless (it’s Election Day); and
  3. stupid to brag about. Especially on Twitter.

Seriously, why is it that young people don’t seem to understand that everything you do on social media is, well, social and media? Aren’t they the ones who grew up with these platforms?

Two days left on the Florida-19 race.

And here’s a headline that you won’t see every day: “Rand Paul Does American Crossroads Robocall to Thwart Libertarian Candidate in FL-13.”

Sen. Rand Paul is helping Florida GOP candidate David Jolly thwart a Libertarian rival polling at four to seven percent, recording a robocall that touts Jolly as someone who wants to “ensure you, not the government, are making decisions for you and your family.”

The call, funded by American Crossroads, a group former Bush aide Karl Rove helped found, will go out to about 20,000 households. The targets of the call are potential supporters of Lucas Overby, a Libertarian candidate who could take votes from GOP candidate Jolly.

Continue reading Two days left on the Florida-19 race.