[POWERLINEBLOG] As expected, Rep. Charlie Crist...the politically androgynous former governor of Florida...
announced today that he will run for governor of Florida. Crist, a former Republican, is one of the biggest charlatans in American politics, in my view.
Crist will have company in the quest for the Democratic nomination. Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, the only Democrat to recently win statewide in Florida, and Rep. Val Demings, a House impeachment manager, are considered likely to join him.
The Democratic nominee will have plenty of resources with which to take on the Republican incumbent, Ron DeSantis. Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, whom Lindsey Graham
...soft-spoken senator from South Carolina, former best buddy of John
MaverickMcCain. Since McCain's demise, Graham has become more outspoken, more Republican and more of a supporter of President Trump. The speech he gave in support of Brett Kavanaugh was downright manly and really cheesed off the Dems...
defeated last year in spite of Harrison’s huge war chest, has said so. With Ron DeSantis being discussed as one of the front-runners on the Republican side for 2024, we can expect liberals from blue states to invest large amounts of money and human capital in the effort to defeat him.
It isn’t obvious, however, what lines of attack will work against the popular and successful DeSantis. Crist accused DeSantis of being "mean and cruel to children" by banning transgender athletes in women’s and girls sports. If this issue has resonance, it resonates in favor of DeSantis, I think.
Democrats will be hard pressed to attack DeSantis for his response to the Wuhan coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men.... Although his response was uncertain at first (understandably so, given all the uncertainty about the virus), Florida, despite its large proportion of elderly residents, has had fewer deaths per capita than the U.S. as a whole (the warm weather may have helped). And DeSantis imposed fewer restrictions on economic and other activity than did the vast majority of governors.