Florida Election 2022: My "Endorsement" for Governor

I consider voting neither a "civic duty" nor an initiation of force. It's just making a mark on a piece of paper to indicate a preference from among several choices in a bad system. The system is there whether I approve of it or not, and a governor will be chosen whether I fill in that little circle or not.

I could justify not voting on "who cares?" grounds or on "it won't make any difference" grounds.

I could also justify voting on Rothbardian "defensive" grounds (choose the least bad slave overseer since you're going to be getting one of those whether you like it or not) and on "send a message" grounds. In a particularly close election, I could justify it on "maybe it will make the difference" grounds.

It's pretty much a toss-up.

So, let's have a look at the race for Florida governor. Should I vote? If so, who should I vote for (or against)?

As I've pointed out elsewhere, the two "major party" candidates on my ballot -- Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Charlie Crist -- are "both swamp creatures, political careerists, tax parasites who’ve spent their entire adult lives either on, or trying to get on, government payrolls." There's absolutely nothing whatsoever that would justify a vote for either one of them.

That said, if the polls had the election within a single percentage point, I might consider choosing Crist as my vote against DeSantis. Not because I think Crist would be a better governor, but because losing this election would effectively take DeSantis out of the running for president in 2024 or 2028. If he can't get re-elected in his own state, he's just not national material. And I do not want a President Ron DeSantis.

What do the polls say? FiveThirtyEight's average has DeSantis up by 6.2%.

That could change (or the polling could be off due to sampling issues) as Latino voters whose parents fled Cuba or Venezuela take note of his idiotic "fly Venezuelan immigrants from Texas to Massachusetts to OWN THE LIBS" stunt.

But for the moment, the chances of my vote affecting the outcome between them are as low as is usual in large elections, which is to say effectively zero. I don't have to vote "for" Crist on the off possibility that doing so will let me OWN DESANTIS.

Who else do we have?

Carmen Jackie Gimenez lists a bunch of credentials and embeds Instagram and Twitter feeds on her campaign's "about" page, but there's no issues page. She seems like she may be reasonably good on immigration freedom and immigrant rights. And she's apparently endorsed by Jesus, which I'd expect to be bigger news than it is. But I'm just not getting the vibe that she offers much in terms of "defensive," "send a message," or "make a difference" grounds.

Other than write-in candidates, that leaves Libertarian candidate Hector Roos.

On one hand, he seems a little too closely affiliated with the Republican PAC that recently took over both the Libertarian Party of Florida and the Libertarian National Committee for my taste. And his background looks a little shady.

On the other hand, his campaign web site, minimal as it is, says the right things. And I suspect that the Mises PAC hasn't yet succeeded in its goal of reframing the Libertarian Party's message into "we're even more stupid and evil than the Trumpists, you should vote Republican" such that a vote for Roos would "send that message."

So, if I vote at all, and if the election doesn't turn into a 1% cliffhanger by the time I do, I'll be voting for Roos.

How to Lose a Tight Election

This:


Rick Scott wasn't doing nearly as well as you'd expect an incumbent to be doing against a flaky party-hopping opportunist like Charlie Crist anyway (see RCP), and now this. Apparently his scheduler got mixed up and told him he was guest-starring on America's Dumbest Douchebag Videos or something.
Go, Adrian!

Election 2014 Handicapping: Florida's Gubernatorial Race

It's really hard to call this early, but my gut feeling is that Republican governor Rick Scott is setting up pretty well for a second term. The polls are back and forth, usually showing Democratic nominee (and former Republican governor) Charlie Crist well ahead of Scott (RCP average right now is Crist +2.4), but two thoughts of my own (first and last in the list below) and three stories featured in Sayfie Review this morning (in the middle of the list below) explain why I think Scott has the initiative:

• Nobody -- nobody -- really trusts Charlie Crist. The Democrats didn't nominate him because they like him, they nominated him because of a knee-jerk feeling that he could win. He's a Republican. No, wait, he's an independent. No, wait, he's a Democrat. He jumps parties like running deer jump fences: Whenever anything gets in the way of the one thing Charlie Crist cares about, which is Charlie Crist.  In November, it will come down to turnout. The entirety of Crist's campaign pitch boils down to 1) "I am Charlie Crist"  and 2) "I am not Rick Scott." It's going to take more than that to get asses out of chairs and down to the polling place.
• Scott is already running an anti-Crist ad blitz. Aaron Deslatte's coverage of that blitz in the Orlando Sentinel tells the tale in eight words: "Outraised 3-to-1 thus far, Crist's campaign ..."  Who's going to give money to Charlie Crist? He has a huge fundraising list -- of people whom he sold himself to as a Republican and who correctly feel betrayed by his "sore loser" moves to independent and then Democrat. He's a tough sell to Democratic donors. Will he still be a Democrat in December, even if he wins? Who knows?
• Scott is campaigning on a "state socialism lite" platform. That may cost him a few Republican base votes (see "Wyllie, Adrian below), but he'll probably more than make up those base votes among independents who like taxpayer-subsidized college tuition and corporate welfare for rail transit.
• How does the third party vote split out? On the one hand, I reject the whole "spoiler" myth. Votes belong to voters, not to candidates. If someone votes for Libertarian nominee Adrian Wyllie or independent Farid Khavari, that's the voter's choice, not a vote "stolen from" one of the major party candidates. On the other hand, it's reasonable to assume that were Wyllie and Khavari not on the ballot, many (not all, but many) of their voters would instead choose one of those major party candidates. And I think those votes will, to the extent that they "come out of a major party candidate's hide," hurt Crist more than they hurt Scott if for no other reason than that Scott already has his base, while Crist is wandering in a partisan wilderness trying to find a new one.

Disclaimers/disclosures: In 2010, before I even lived in Florida, I did some freelance campaign work for Khavari. I stopped voting in 2010, but there's a slight possibility I'll vote this year for various reasons not really that related to politics. If I do, it will probably be for Wyllie.

The power of Crist compels you

Back on April 19th, The Other McCain asked "how stupid is Charlie Crist?"

And, as booze-addled Peckerwood Populist pundits are wont to do, he answered his own question: "Stupid enough to think he can get elected as an independent ... my own opinion is that it would be a very good thing for Crist to run as an independent and get his ass kicked nine ways to Sunday by Marco Rubio."

My reply at the time (see comments on post linked above) was seemingly wrong also, but not quite as wrong as Stacy's take -- I predicted a Crist win, but consigned Rubio to third, not second, place.

Right now, Crist is up on Rubio by 11 points, but Rubio leads Democrat Kendrick Meek by 17.

I'm going to stand by my prediction though -- I expect to see Rubio come in below 20% in November. We haven't heard the last of his personal financial imbroglios or his alleged abuses of GOP credit cards, nor does the current polling capture the likely positive (for Meek) Election Day effect of Democratic GOTV ops.