Independent Charlie Crist faces a tough general election in Florida's Senate race. Party-less Crist faces harsh reality

WEST MIAMI, Fla. — First, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist was supposed to be the Republican nominee for Senate. Then he seemed on track to be the de facto Democratic candidate. Now, following Rep. Kendrick Meek’s victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, the Republican-turned-independent governor is finally and unmistakably a man without a party.

With billionaire Jeff Greene’s quixotic Senate campaign officially dead and buried, most of the Democratic donors, officials and activists who would have bolted the flawed real estate mogul for Crist will be forced to stay with Meek. The state GOP establishment already has disowned Crist. And because he’s standing in between Meek and Republican nominee Marco Rubio, Crist is taking fire from the two sides he’s attempting to bridge.


Rubio is coming after him from the right in an attempt to effectively create a second Democratic primary that will leave the party split.

“I have two supporters of the Obama agenda,” the former speaker of the state House said of his rivals before voting at his precinct here Tuesday.

And Meek, hoping to persuade Democratic voters to remain loyal to their nominee, is reminding his own party base of the conservative positions Crist took in the not-so-distant past.

“Gov. Crist is not a Democrat,” Meek said in an interview over the weekend.

Noting his own consistency on issues like abortion rights, offshore drilling and Social Security privatization, Meek said of Crist: “His track record doesn’t speak to Democratic values.”

All of which leaves Crist in the position of having to perform Houdini-like marvels of contortion to find a large enough space in the political middle to keep his independent bid on track.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Crist said his values place him squarely in his state's political mainstream.

"If Floridians want somebody on the far right, they have a candidate, and if they want somebody on the far left, they have a canddidate," said the governor. "But if they want someone in the common-sense middle, I'm their candidate."

He added: "I may be a man without a party, but I'm not a man without a people."

Crist very likely would have had more of those people poised to support him in November today had Democrats not nominated Meek, however.

While the Miami congressman's primary opponent, the baggage-laden Greene, would have given Democrats easy cover to support Crist in droves, it’s far less likely that core liberal voters will abandon a sitting member of Congress with a solidly liberal voting record, deep roots in the state’s African-American political community and the enthusiastic support of former President Bill Clinton.

That means that for the final two months of the campaign, Crist will have to chart a narrow, largely untested course between both parties. He’ll have finite financial resources and few outside allies who can ride to his rescue. In short, he’ll have to be a political one-man band, relying ever more on his skills as a sunny, relentless and elastic campaigner who bends to where he thinks the people, and victory, are found.

"It’s difficult in terms of the infrastructure, there's no question about it," he conceded.

The capping of the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico makes this task tougher. For months, Crist was able to float above the campaign by tending to gubernatorial duties related to the spill that also happened to keep him in the paper and on TV most every day. Now that the crisis seems to have largely subsided and the final sprint to Election Day is about to begin, Crist will have to engage more directly in the political fray.

The Summer of Charlie, it seems, is over.

But he remains characteristically upbeat. He's liberated from toeing a conservative line he was never comfortable with and, at a time of deep voter contempt for both parties, remains convinced that he has his finger on the pulse of his beloved Sunshine State.

"I understand that Republicans have some good ideas and Democrats have some good ideas, but nobody has a monopoly on the future of the country," Crist said. "And I’m the only one who can say that in this race. They're so hamstrung by their political affiliation that they can't call balls and strikes."

As his rivals attempt to paint him as, respectively, a de facto Democrat and a secret Republican, Crist said he remains the same politician who beat back the Democratic tide to become governor in 2006.

Voters, he said, appreciate his record of cutting taxes and avoiding culture wars.

"They want a fiscal conservative and social moderate, and that’s what I am," Crist argued.

But even while it's not a matter of emphasis now that he's hunting for Democratic votes, the governor acknowledged that he remains true to some conservative convictions that will provide Meek fodder.

"I am pro-life," he said, while hastening to add that he prefers a "reasoned approach" on the issue and vetoed legislation this year that would have required women to get an ultrasound before an abortion.

He made no attempt to downplay his support for gun rights, though.

"I'm pro-gun, always have been," he said, noting his NRA membership.

The governor, however, is more equivocal when it comes to his successor.

Asked directly if he will vote for Democrat Alex Sink, the state’s CFO, or Rick Scott, the conservative millionaire businessman who won a surprise victory in the GOP primary, Crist said: "I haven't decided. The beauty of our country is that we have a secret ballot."

But he wouldn't rule out weighing in this fall.

"I'm an old quarterback; sometimes you call an audible," he said.

All told, though, his campaign is going to require more of a ballerina's dexterity than a signal-caller's judgment.

Even for a skilled pol like Crist, it will be tough to pull off.

The final wave of pre-primary polling showed just how precarious Crist’s position is. A Quinnipiac University poll released last week showed him holding on to the same single-digit lead he’s had since May, taking 39 percent of the vote to Rubio’s 32 percent and Meek’s 16 percent.

But two other surveys suggested that the governor may already be slipping. The polling firm Mason-Dixon placed Rubio 5 points ahead of Crist this month, giving the Republican a 38 percent to 33 percent lead, with Meek trailing at 18 percent. A survey from Democratic-aligned Public Policy Polling showed Rubio taking a 40 percent to 32 percent lead over Crist (Meek was at 17 percent) and prompted pollster Dean Debnam to conclude: “Kendrick Meek’s likely victory … could kill the tripartisan coalition Crist had been building.”

However shaky, that’s the coalition the governor’s still hoping to hold together. Given his need to draw both Democratic and Republican votes in a three-way race, Crist is highly unlikely to declare before Election Day which party he’d caucus with in the Senate, according to a source familiar with his campaign. And despite signs of movement in the polling numbers, the winning percentage for a candidate like Crist could still be in the high 30 percent range.

Senior Democrats acknowledge that Meek will have a difficult time winning in a year in which Republicans have enthusiasm on their side and the difficult electoral math of a split party looms.

“Kendrick has got a lot of work to do here,” said former Rep. Jim Davis, the Democrat who Crist defeated for governor in 2006. “It’s going to be very difficult for him to get heard in this environment.”

Though conceding Meek’s “disadvantages,” Davis said his former colleague’s path to victory could come if Rubio is able to really damage Crist.

“If he dismantles Crist and Crist looks less viable, then those Democrats aren’t going to Rubio.”

Having lost access to partisan fundraising networks, Crist is also hoarding his resources to battle back against such an assault. He had $8 million in the bank on Aug. 4, according to a pre-primary report filed with the Federal Election Commission. Meek was down to $2.5 million and has likely spent even more to beat back Greene’s assault. Rubio had only $4.5 million in the bank — a sign, Crist supporters believe, that the Republican has failed to fully capitalize on his advantages as a national conservative favorite.

But it’s not Rubio who now finds himself in the cross hairs.

Even as Crist attempts to knock down questions about his partisan leanings or who he’ll eventually caucus with by saying he’s only siding with “the people,” his rivals are working to brand him with a scarlet political letter.

“One has to take a position,” Meek said. “And to say that you’re kind of for ‘the people’ or on the side of ‘the people’ — I think we’re going to get more defined.”

Meek’s campaign began that effort with gusto on Wednesday, e-mailing reporters a compilation of news articles from last year highlighting some of the governor’s conservative views under the header: “’In Case You Missed It: Crist on the Issues.’”

The quotes were because the original e-mail with the same stories was sent by Crist’s own campaign when he was still in the GOP primary.