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Will Crist Make Run For Senate?

The Associated Press

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, left, Iowa Gov. Governor Chet Culver, Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe, and Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski attend the 2009 National Governors Association winter meeting in Washington.

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By WILLIAM MARCH

wmarch@tampatrib.com

Published: February 23, 2009

Updated: 02/23/2009 12:33 am

TAMPA - Gov. Charlie Crist has pursued his political career through five offices in 17 years, and now is looking at a sixth, the U.S. Senate.

For months, political analysts and Crist's friends have said it's unlikely he'd leave the governor's office after only one term to run for the Senate.

But now the soothsaying is swinging the other way. Experts think a Senate run could help ignite the national political career he's known to aspire to - even though it seems a strange move to make for a number of reasons:

•Several prominent Republicans are leaving Washington, including Sen. Mel Martinez and Rep. Adam Putnam, after finding themselves in a comparatively powerless minority. Why would Crist head north against the traffic?

•Crist has yet to deliver campaign promises on property taxes and insurance. Wouldn't it look bad to leave office with promises unfulfilled?

•For those with presidential ambitions, conventional wisdom is that it's better to be a governor, especially in a large state, than a senator.

•In Florida, Crist is "The Man," the decider. Why give that up to become a minority freshman among 100 senators?

The answers lie in the political circumstances of the day and Crist's own political style, said political experts and Republican strategists.

"In the 1980s and 1990s, the wisdom was that if you want to run for president, get out of Congress, go be governor and get executive experience," said University of South Florida political scientist Darryl Paulson.

But in last year's race, he said, "We saw the exact opposite of that happening."

The presidential race initially included several current and former chief executives - Democrat Bill Richardson and Republicans Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.

But it boiled down to a contest among senators - Hillary Rodham Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama.

National Exposure

For Crist, a Senate seat would give him a broader national platform, as well as exposure on national security, trade and economic issues voters want in presidential candidates, Paulson said.

As recently as a year ago, said Tallahassee lobbyist and Crist ally David Rancourt, it wouldn't have made sense for Crist to think about leaving Tallahassee for Washington.

"But given the economic situation, it seems all solutions these days are expected to come from Washington," Rancourt said. "There's more attention, more power and more opportunity to change things there."

Politically, the Senate is an electoral safe haven - a six-year term with no term limits. An open seat like this one, with no incumbent running for re-election, is a rare opportunity.

"Most governors eventually aspire to the Senate, like former Florida Gov. Bob Graham," said Justin Sayfie, a GOP fundraiser and lobbyist. "As a governor, you have a more immediate impact on people's lives, but as senator you can have an impact on issues across the globe."

Staying in Florida poses some risks for Crist because of the state's massive problems.

"Bad economic times usually make governors less popular," said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. "They have to make the tough decisions on resource allocation."

Senators, by comparison, have only "collective responsibility" if things go wrong, and can always look good passing out federal aid, he said.

Unsolved Problems

But jumping out of the governor's office also carries risks.

Crist might have to battle criticism of political opportunism - a charge he has deflected before - and of leaving work unfinished in Tallahassee.

When he ran for governor in 2006, Crist promised to solve the two biggest problems Florida property owners face: high property taxes and high insurance premiums.

But neither problem is solved, and Democrats have signaled that if Crist runs, they'll pounce on those issues.

If Crist left behind those problems and a poor economy, "I'm not sure Floridians will feel that they were well-served by him in leaving them in that lurch," New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, head of the national Democratic Party's Senate campaign committee, told reporters last week.

Crist has at least a year to work on improving his record. This week, he's proposing a list of property tax cuts to go on the 2010 ballot.

Long tenure in one office also isn't Crist's style. It's not quite true that he has never run for re-election to an office, but it's close.

After winning a shortened term in the state Senate in 1992, he won re-election in 1994 and served a full term. He left that seat in 1998 to run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate against Graham.

Since then, he has served in the state Department of Business Regulation, as education commissioner and as state attorney general before winning the governor's office in 2006.

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