The American Spectator

Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a fairly conservative state senator for a years, a RINO by the time he was bunking in the governor’s mansion, an independent when he lost a U.S. Senate seat by 20 points to Marco Rubio, and an all-but-in-registration Democrat now that he’s whooping up Barack Obama and the rest of the Democratic ticket, has made himself a political irrelevance. His tepid speech at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte received the polite but tepid applause it deserved.

Polls have shown Crist would beat incumbent Republican Florida governor Rick Scott, one of the least popular governors in the lower 48, by two points if he ran against Scott as a Democrat. The same polls show that a Democrat chosen randomly out of the phonebook would beat Scott by the same amount. The real Democrats, those credentialed by the Great Mentioner, all beat Scott by significantly wider margins. (Scott even loses to “a governor to be named later,” and against psoriasis he’s within the margin of error.)  

But just because Crist can no longer be taken seriously as a future candidate, that’s no reason why he can’t whoop up bad ideas. On MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown” show earlier this week, Crist said he thinks Florida should have open political primaries. This is the arrangement where Democrats help Republicans decide who they should run, Republicans help Democrats decide who they should run, and independents help everybody. Perhaps our Charlie thinks most voters’ political philosophies and allegiances are as fluid and inconsequential as his.

Crist said open primaries would make state government more transparent.

Don’t ask me. I don’t get the connection either.