TAMPA — I like to include exclusive breaking news with my
analysis when possible. In this spirit, my sources within the
Charlie Crist for Senate campaign inform me that press secretary
Danny Kanner will soon have a new title— Vice President for
Clarifications.
Florida governor Crist (I-Charlie) changes his positions
on major issues so often and so rapidly, Kanner’s state-of-the-art
office must be equipped with a Cray supercomputer, four kinds of
slide-rules, Cue cards (for use when Crist is asked about his
positions by the media), an entire wall of loose-leaf focus-groups
reports, twelve cases of Ginkoba (to help Charlie remember what he
said day before yesterday), two Harvard psychologists and a SWAT
team of pollsters on speed-dial, a Magic 8-Ball, a wind-sock, and a
mood ring.
Excessive you say? Not at all. Young Kanner must help his
politically peripatetic candidate remember from day to day what he
believes, or, more to the point, what he says he believes. A
Herculean task, as Crist has held more positions than you can find
in the presidential platforms of both major parties, The Joy of
Sex, and the Kama Sutra combined.
John Kerry’s famous political dictum, “I was for that
until I was against it,” is alive and well in Crist’s playbook.
Kanner, who studied political communications on a Ron Zeigler
scholarship (for younger readers, Tricky Dick’s press secretary),
is nimble enough to explain how Crist’s core principles of three
months ago, and attendant positions on specific issues, are all
“inoperative.” He says he takes strength for his difficult ministry
from Lincoln’s adage: “You can fool some of the people all of the
time, and dazzle the rest of them with footwork.”
Those paying the slightest attention to Crist’s opera
buffa campaign know that Crist, depending on the political needs of
the moment, has in a remarkably short time held every available
position on the major issues of the day. A former scrub quarterback
in college (just behind the head cheerleader on the depth chart),
Crist has run left to right to left, with various oblique feints,
on: Obama’s “stimulus” slush fund, oil drilling off Florida’s
coast, gays in the military, tying public school teacher’s pay to
performance, ObamaCare, left-geek U.S. Supreme Court justices
(against Sonia Sotomayor when he was a Republican, for Elena Kagan
as an independent), right to life, etc. (list shortened for space
considerations).
Before leaving the party he had spent his entire political
life in — first run for office in 1986 — Crist was a RINO. But
conservative former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, who has run
a consistent and unambiguously conservative campaign, was Florida
Republicans’ clear choice in the Republican primary, so Crist
declared himself an independent in April.
Crist is now up against Rubio and Miami Congressman
Kendrick Meek, a consistent and unambiguous liberal. Trying to
stake out a position amongst all this clarity, Crist has decided
that on the important matters facing Florida and the nation he
feels very strongly both ways. He will, he repeats unctuously on
the campaign trail, do the work of the people, not of the party
bosses. He will, we’re assured, take the best ideas from both
parties. He won’t even say which party he’ll caucus with if he wins
the Senate seat.
While Rubio is running from the right and Meek from the
left, Crist is attempting to run from above. It worked for a while.
For a few weeks after Crist went party-less he held a small lead in
most polls. But this strategy is a loser in a year when voters are
looking for authenticity. In the abstract, the notion of taking the
best ideas from left and right, from Republican and Democrat, has
appeal. But when candidates try to translate this to specific
issues, to tell voters what they would do if elected, it quickly
becomes incoherent.
Both Rubio and Meek are hitting on Crist for his
inconsistency and rank opportunism. While Crist fishes for
Democratic votes with newly minted leftish positions on most
issues, a new Meek ad shows Crist in the recent past praising
George Bush as “a leader of courage and conviction,” saying how
impressed he was with Sarah Palin, and describing himself as a Jeb
Bush (Florida’s former and still popular governor) Republican. “I’m
about as conservative as you can get; I’m a pro-life, pro-gun, and
anti-tax Republican,” Crist says in the ad.
This has to be disorienting to Florida Democrats who Crist
is trying to woo, and a real knee-slapper for Florida Republicans
who know this doesn’t come within a mile of describing Crist. As
Florida voters watch Crist switch 180 degrees on issue after issue,
his poll numbers sink. Rubio holds a double-digit lead now in polls
of likely voters. Meek, who has run a poor third since the race
became a three-way, is gaining on Crist and will likely catch and
pass him.
In 2010, “I feel very strongly both ways” is not a slogan
any candidate can ride into the U.S. Senate. Kanner can clarify his
little heart out, but it will not
avail.
