Charlie Crist made it official today, he is running as an independent. And I picked this day to be in Washington DC, not Florida. Nice timing, Steve.
If the Governor's goal was to get people talking to him, he succeeded. I took 10 calls this morning before 9:30 AM, and 9 of them were from reporters talking about this race. It just carried on from there, in the line at airport security in Tallahassee, on the television in the lobby of my hotel when I checked in, and even the topic of conversation in the lobby of a restaurant. Heck, even my blog had its best day ever. It is all Charlie, all the time, just the way he likes it.
Tomorrow it will get even more interesting, when California billionaire Jeff Greene, gets in the race as well, as a Democrat. Only in Florida.
But the real game is between Meek, Crist and Rubio. As I wrote last night in Cristpalooza Begins, it is a wide open race. Personally, I think the biggest beneficiary of the Crist move is Meek, but all three have a shot.
Clearly, on the surface, Crist's math is the hardest, 50% of independents and 1 out of 3 GOP and Democratic voters. If you want to find out how Crist is doing, just ask three of your Republican AND three of your Democratic friends where they stand on the race. If two of those 6 are with Crist, he has a great shot. If not, he's probably done.
But as some Crist fans have reminded me today, on the flip side, in order to win, he just needs to convince about 60% of the Floridians who today approve of him to vote for him. Moreover, Crist is already a likeable guy, and people like to vote for candidates whom they like. Seems, reasonable enough, right? We'll find out in November.
Regardless of where you come from on this race, or on politics in general, pull up a seat and soak this one in. It is going to be a great race---and hopefully, create a few jobs in the Florida economy from all the political pundits who will be invading the state to watch.
Please keep reading my blog. There will be plenty more on this race in the days, weeks and months to come.