Crist: No longer welcome in the GOP

“How did it come to this?” said Adam Smith in The Miami Herald. As recently as last year, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist enjoyed a 70 percent approval rating in his state and was widely seen as a future Republican presidential contender. But after deciding to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Florida, Crist’s popularity went into a stunning nose dive. It all began with “the Hug”—the now-infamous moment last year when Crist embraced Barack Obama at a rally for the president’s stimulus package. After that, Crist moved steadily to the left, siding with teachers’ unions on the issue of merit pay and forging an identity as “the ultimate bipartisan consensus-seeker.” Today, Crist, 53, is “a Republican pariah” whose 30-point polling lead in the primary has turned into a 23-point deficit to the younger, more conservative Marco Rubio. This week, he was deciding whether to renounce the GOP and run for the Senate as an independent.

The GOP’s “crucifixion of Crist says less about him than it does about the party,” said Dana Milbank in The Washington Post. Not long ago, moderates like Crist—who actually tried to work with Florida’s Democrats to solve problems—were the GOP’s best hope of returning to political relevance. But now Republicans are defined by the extremism of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and the Tea Party, and any deviation from conservative orthodoxy is seen as heresy. Crist is not alone, said Liz Sidoti in the Associated Press. In Senate races in Arizona, Utah, Kentucky, and New Hampshire, “conservatives backed by Tea Party activists are challenging more centrist candidates preferred by the party establishment.” The question is: Will the GOP benefit by driving moderates out of the party?

There is indeed a “civil war” within the GOP, said Kimberley Strassel in The Wall Street Journal, but it’s not between zealots and pragmatists. It’s between complacent political hacks like Crist and up-and-comers like Rubio, who want to return the party to its traditional focus on small government, free markets, and fiscal discipline. In a state full of senior citizens, Rubio, 38, even has had the guts to call for reforming entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare. The public has already heard plenty from so-called moderates who “duck or demagogue issues.” For the GOP, the only road out of “the political wilderness” is to nominate candidates who’ll shake things up—like Rubio.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up