Charlie Crist’s independent Florida Senate run and the Democrats’ failure

Word is leaking out all over that Charlie Crist, the exiting Florida Governor who lost his old on the Republican Party’s Senate nomination to challenger Marco Rubio, will pull a Joe Lieberman and run for office as an independent. The Miami Herald states that he believes the idea is polling well:

Crist, who prides himself on listening to the people, polled the issue. And he liked what he saw, sources close to his campaign said. In a three-way race, they say, the governor’s about dead even with GOP candidate Marco Rubio. U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, the likely Democratic contender, trails.

via Backers: Crist will make independent bid for Senate – Miami-Dade Breaking News – MiamiHerald.com.

So is Crist the Nick Clegg to Rubio’s David Cameron?

It remains to be seen whether or not Crist’s switch will have the effect he’s hoping it will create, or if he’ll just be a spoiler who adds a Democratic member to the Senate. After all, this was a guy who won the Florida governor’s seat handily in 2006, but not by a landslide (by about 52 to 48% of the vote). Crist is going to have to chart a complicated course to distinguish himself from Rubio without being accused of being too much like Meek. And a lot of right-leaning voters in the state may decide to stick with the party they know in place of the ex-Republican they thought they knew.

But it is this agita among the Republicans that should be a fountain of inspiration for Democrats. And their inability to capitalize on it decisively is a sign of how poorly they’ve managed the political victory of 2008.

All over the nation, bizarro Republican primary fights are taking place. Bob Bennett looks set to lose his primary bid to keep his Senate seat in Utah, and John McCain is fighting hard against ultra-right ex-Congressman J.D. Hayworth. When conservative infighting like this takes place, the result can be what we saw in New York’s 23rd district last November – a Democrat getting elected over two Republican candidates – Doug Hoffman and Dede Scozzafava – in a place where it wasn’t expected. In contrast, when mild-mannered Republicans aren’t forced to prove they’re more conservative than another Republican – think Bob McDonnell in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey – they handily turned statehouses red in states where they were previously blue. But in red-leaning states like Florida, Arizona, and Utah, Republicans are shedding blood and treasure in a useless fight over who is a true conservative. And like the cock-up in NY-23 that kept a mostly reliable Republican, Dede Scozzafava, from going to Washington and voting against health care reform in the House in November, another Democrat can be added to the Democratic side of the aisle.

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But, in spite of all this, the Democrats can’t really take advantage of it. No one is expecting Rep. Meek to win easily now that it’s a 3-way race. Moreover, the Democrats are going to have to fight like hell to hold onto blue seats in Illinois (Obama’s former seat), Nevada (Harry Reid’s current seat), and Pennsylvania (Arlen Specter’s seat). In states like Delaware, North Dakota, and Indiana, it’s unclear they’ll be able to even field a credible Democratic campaign. And this isn’t even getting into the more granular level of the House races where the Democrats are all set for a much bigger whupping.

If I were a Democratic strategist, I’d be looking at Florida right now and gasping. I’d be asking myself, if the Republicans are in such an unhealthy state that they can’t let an outgoing governor whose terms were not marred by scandal ascend to the Senate without all this conflict, how is it that we can look even unhealthier?

The answer is that the party has done such a poor job of governing that it can’t even make the case internally, let alone to the nation as a whole, that it’s victories in 2006 and 2008 meant something. But to conservative and independent voters, the case is definitely being made that those victories meant something. And as Democrats prepare to get their butts handed to them in November in spite of all the trouble on the Republican side of the aisle, they should really reflect on what that means for how the party goes about getting its business done.