Crist's Selfish Power Play
Charlie Crist may not realize it, but holding a position of power does not entitle one to a Senate nomination.
In any normal competitive primary, two qualified candidates duke it out to a finish and the loser exits gracefully. This unwritten law of decorum exists so as to uphold order and create a fair playing field. No governmental regulations were needed to do this; the rules of the arena simply evolved that way to encourage fair play.
Charlie Crist won't play by those rules because he thinks he's entitled to a Senate seat by virtue of being the governor. Throughout the year, the media have spoken alternately of a "moderate purge" or "tea party takeover" of the Florida nomination -- as if Crist were entitled to the nomination and Rubio was stealing it from him!
The most appalling feature of this mess is the charade Crist is putting on: insiders wanted him to remain a Republican, Crist has explained, but the "voters of Florida" kept asking him to run as an independent, and how could he say no to The People? It's fairly evident that one Florida resident in particular is most interested in seeing Crist's political career continue.
After months of portraying himself as a "true conservative," Crist apparently has been -- without much success -- wooing Rahm Emanuel and Democratic operatives to lend their tacit support to his campaign, akin to the GOP's strategy toward the 2006 Connecticut race. Unlike Lieberman, though, who lost the primary due to his principled support of the Iraq War, it seems that Crist's principled support, as Rudy Giuliani found out in 2008, only reaches as far as it will carry his career.
If Marco Rubio had lost the primary battle and dropped out to run as a Tea Party candidate, he'd have been rightfully ridiculed as a self-serving opportunist. Let's not spare Charlie Crist that same level of ridicule.