Crist and convenience (according to Rubio)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You're right, Marco Rubio, to a point. It is indeed "political convenience" that has driven Charlie Crist from the GOP, compelling him to run against you as an independent in this year's Senate race.

But it's also much more than that, and this is where you're wrong. Ideas, principles, and ideology do come into play. Why, after all, is it now convenient for Crist not to run as a Republican? Because the Republican Party has been taken over by extremists like you and your teabagging pals, because you, and those like you, have effectively driven Crist, and those like him, from your party.

Look, I have no love for Crist. I'd welcome him as a Democrat, I suppose, and there are many Democrats like him in the party, but, for the most part, I do not share his views and prefer that Democrats choose real Democrats, broadly speaking, to run as Democrats.

But it's pretty clear that Crist has no place in today's Republican Party, which now occupies a narrow ideological sliver on the right. Sure, that means he had no chance of beating you, and so it was convenient for him, a politician who wants to win, to leave to run as an independent, but it is also pretty clear, and I suspect it is to Crist, that the party doesn't want him, and those like him, in its ranks anymore.