Charlie Crist Leaves Republican Party

It looks like Charlie Crist is going to run as an independent. (source). Given that Charlie is a relatively level-headed and mentally stable guy, it seems like a rational move to leave a party that has been taken over by bat-shit-crazy-Palinite teabaggers, which is the constituency that is lining up to fellate Marco Rubio right now.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 29th, 2010 at 5:34 pm and is filed under politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

5 Responses to Charlie Crist Leaves Republican Party

  1. Alan says:
    April 29, 2010 at 6:32 pm

    I think we need to change to an Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) system in order to encourage sensible candidates to run who don’t have to pander to either extreme in order to get nominated. If the vote splits roughly 33-33-33, presumably Crist would be the second choice of most people and easily win under IRV.

    • McKingford says:
      April 30, 2010 at 9:00 am

      This wouldn’t have helped Crist. His problem wasn’t that the Republican primary was split, allowing Rubio to slide up the middle – his problem was that a majority of Republicans favoured Rubio.

      IRV would only help Crist in the general election – although his choice to go independent is likely the result of his calculation that he will win a three way split between himself, the GOP and Dems.

      • Alan says:
        April 30, 2010 at 9:57 am

        That’s what I’m referring to: IRV for general elections. The proposal in California, as discussed by the CA Lt. Gov last night on the Daily Show, also has some merit: an open, non-partisan primary where the top two vote-getters advance to the general election. IMO, that proposal would be better if any candidate getting more than 15-20% of the vote advanced to an IRV general election.

  2. Alex C. says:
    April 29, 2010 at 11:17 pm

    No love for our former colleague? Rubio is a good guy. At least he was back then.

    • marcorandazza says:
      April 30, 2010 at 9:00 am

      No, no love for him at all. Well, let me rephrase that — if Marco Rubio wants to sit at my family’s dinner table and share a meal with us, he’s welcome. I’ll buy the man a drink any time. However, I’d sooner eat shit than vote for him.