Crist's Conundrum: Who to Pick to Replace Retiring Florida Sen. Martinez
By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Charlie Crist has a problem.
Now the governor of Florida, Crist decided to forego a bid for a second term in favor of a campaign to win the U.S. Senate seat of fellow Republican Mel Martinez, who decided not to run for re-election after serving just one six-year term.
Crist is a more moderate Republican than many of his fellow Florida partisans, which led former state House Speaker Marco Rubio to throw his hat in the ring and enter the upcoming GOP Senate primary. Rubio is decidedly more conservative than Crist, with an intense and active following even though the latest polls show him behind Crist by almost 30 points, 55 percent to 26 percent.
Rubio supporters say the gap reflects his lack of statewide name identification, but he still has a tough row to hoe. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, whose job it is to win seats for the GOP in Congress's upper chamber, has already endorsed Crist, likely believing that his current popularity as governor would translate into an easy win for a party that can ill afford to lose any more U.S. Senate seats.
But Martinez has thrown everyone a curve, announcing he not only was retiring from the Senate but would be leaving a year early, meaning Crist would have to choose a temporary senator to fill the vacancy in the seat he himself would be campaigning to win over the coming year.
Crist has already said he would not appoint himself, which is a wise political move. The last governor to do that—or something very nearly like that—ended up costing his own party both its seats in the U.S. Senate as well as the governorship. The challenge of finding Martinez's temporary successor creates for Crist something of a box, very much akin to the "battle of wits" between Vizzini and "The Man in Black" in 1987's The Princess Bride; the perils associated with each choice are easily identifiable while the correct answer, the best answer, remains illusive.
He cannot, for example, appoint as senator someone like former Gov. Jeb Bush—or, for that matter, Bush himself—because he would invite comparisons concerning stature and statesmanship that could be politically damaging. But he cannot appoint an unknown quantity either, because those who would rather not see Crist go to the Senate would seize upon it as an example of a lack of political courage.
If Crist appoints a moderate like himself, he gives ammunition to the more conservative Rubio for the primary. If he appoints someone who is more conservative than he is himself he invites comparisons that would energize the GOP's base in a way that pushes it in Rubio's direction.
It is an unenviable position for an ambitious politician to be in. Whomever he picks, it could turn out to be, in a political sense, the worst decision he ever made.
- Check out our political cartoons.
- Become a political insider: Subscribe to U.S. News Weekly, our digital magazine.
- On Facebook? Become a fan of the Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Tags: Florida | Senate | Mel Martinez | Charlie Crist
Tools: 
Share
|
| Comments (1) | Print
Reader Comments
A comment
I would like to comment on an article posted on Yahoo on Sunday, August 16, titled: The 50 richest colleges:
This report is good and people really need to know this information because these institutions are educational institutions and are in business to educate young people and to serve as good examples for the younger generations. With that in mind our country is going through tough times right now, the very same system that enabled these individuals and institutions to achieve their high positions in society. They always talk of how great America is and how much they love America, when it suits them. Many years ago the president of the United States informed all Americans that we all needed to make sacrifices for the benefit of the country. Please tell me what sacrifices these very wealthy individuals and institutions made for the benefit of the country? Did they simply continue with their business as usual—with their own profiteering ways? While only the American soldiers were left to put their lives on the line and make the necessary sacrifices, alone?
There is a problem in America and it concerns this very same issue. Is capitalism moral? Should it remain the same, where some continue to gain too much while others go without? America is the richest country on earth, is it really the right thing to do? Can we continue on this course? Should we continue to rely on our military to bully the rest of the world and when, and if, they don’t agree with our profit only state of mind, just kill them and then expect then not to try and kill us too?
Many in our society maintain an old out dated primitive way of thinking, which is confrontational, dangerous, disrespectful, greedy and selfish, to many in the rest of the world. America remains a divided country from within; many don’t even want our own people to have health insurance, because of their own selfishness and greed. Where is the unity in the United States, when everyone is divided by policies and profits, republicans and democrats, wealthy and poor, haves and have not’s, just to name a few.
My recently published book by AuthorHouse titled: THE ROAD TO AMERICA’S ECONOMIC MELTDOWN, available at Amazon, Barnes&Nobles and many other retailers address many of these questions. All Americans need to read it. These major institutions like these 50 richest colleges and their wealthy individuals and their institution leaders need to read it, understand it and learn that changes are needed, not business as usual and now is the right time. Our younger generations must learn to do better and have more concern for their fellow man, rather than learning a profit only philosophy. Or we may not have another recovery after the next created crisis for a few people at the top to gain greater fortunes at the expense of the less fortunate people in American society.
advertisement
