No one in Crist’s circle denied that extensive conversations are underway. Crist takes steps toward comeback

Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has spoken in recent weeks with multiple national political consultants about assembling a team to run for governor in 2014, accelerating his deliberations about a possible comeback bid, according to several Democratic sources closely watching the race.

Crist, who left the Republican Party in 2010 and campaigned last year for Obama’s reelection, has been in no outward rush to jump into the race formally. But operatives familiar with his thinking say a gubernatorial run against GOP Gov. Rick Scott has become less a question of if than when.


Crist has stepped up his public activities this spring and gave a high-profile speech to the Hillsborough and Pinellas County Democratic Parties’ Jefferson-Jackson Dinner earlier this month. Just as significant, however, have been Crist’s private conversations with a range of political vendors eager to land him as a client for 2014.

( Also on POLITICO: Crist crushes Scott in poll)

His allies say that consultants have been courting Crist for months; the 2014 gubernatorial race is expected to be a costly, and thus lucrative, affair. But the conversations have taken on a new level of intensity and focus as Crist has leaned further in the direction of joining the race.

As a former Republican who has never sought office before as a Democrat, it makes sense for Crist to block off a longer period of time to assemble a campaign team – unlike other potential Democratic contenders, he has not spent years cultivating the party’s operative class.

( Also on POLITICO: Charlie Crist: Luckiest pol in America)

Sources in and outside the Crist camp declined to share for publication the names of the firms and strategists he has been meeting with, though several said top advisers to Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign were among them. No one POLITICO spoke with in Crist’s circle denied that extensive conversations are underway.

“He’s being inundated, as am I, by people asking to come meet and offer their services,” said John Morgan, the influential trial lawyer and Democratic donor whose law firm employs Crist. “He continues to receive a lot of support and urging.”

Asked if Crist had been in touch with Obama’s national advisers, Morgan said only that it’s been “Obama people, Nelson people, Graham people, all sorts of people” – referring to Florida’s senior senator, Bill Nelson, and former Sen. Bob Graham.

Nelson has not ruled out running for governor himself, though he has said he is not currently preparing a campaign.

A second Crist adviser stressed that recent conversations with vendors were part and parcel of the general encouragement he’s received with respect to 2014, and wrote in an email: “Governor Crist continues to hear from tons of people hoping for change in Florida. He’s the People’s Governor and he’s going to listen to what the people have to say – always has.”

A third source familiar with Crist’s thinking, however, said the former governor has started to reach out to different consultants proactively ahead of a likely campaign.

Weighing heavily on Crist – as well as other Democrats eyeing the gubernatorial race – is the likelihood that the unpopular Scott will spend a titanic sum of money to win reelection. A former hospital executive who had never before sought public office, Scott spent more than $70 million of his own money to win the Republican nomination and general election three years ago.

Scott told POLITICO in a late April interview that he expected to win reelection on the strength of Florida’s economic track record under his leadership, predicting the race “will be similar to 2010. It’s going to be about jobs.”

Crist only formally became a Democrat in December of 2012, after trying unsuccessfully to win election to the Senate in 2010 as an independent. He bailed out of the GOP after falling far behind now-Sen. Marco Rubio in an open-seat primary.