Charles, The Third

How moribund is the Florida Democratic Party these days?  Let's examine the evidence:

• Florida hasn't elected a Democratic governor since 1994, when the biggest story in America was O.J. Simpson.
• Florida hasn't elected a Democratic U.S. Senator since 2012, and voters last elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate seat in Florida up for election this year in 1998.
• Democrats haven't held a majority of the Florida U.S. House delegation since 1988.
• Florida Democrats haven't controlled the state Senate since 1994 and haven't controlled the state House since 1996.
• Florida Democrats Alan Grayson, Alex Sink, Kendrick Meek, Gwen Graham and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell were all considered Democrats to watch in the 2010s.  Now the FBI couldn't find them even if it did have time to spare while searching Mar-a-Lago. 
• Andrew Gillum, the previous Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Florida, was expected to be a visible voting-rights activist after his loss, like Stacey Abrams.  Instead, he got in trouble when he was found getting high on crystal meth and has since been charged for wire fraud and fraudulent political fundraising. 
• The only current Democratic statewide elected official in Florida is Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, and the state party's queen bee is U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, best known for giving us Donald Trump by rigging the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries for Hillary Clinton as Democratic National Committee chair.

And, in this environment, Florida Democrats have decided to give Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor who became a Democrat and got elected to the U.S. House, a third try at statewide office since leaving the governorship.  Having run for the U.S. Senate as an independent in 2010 and as a Democrat to get his old job back in the governor's office in 2014, Florida Democrats nominated him once again for the governorship of Florida against incumbent governor Ron DeSantis. 

There could hardly be a more dubious opponent for DeSantis than Crist, who defeated Nikki Fried in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.  Unlike Fried, who was strongly pro-choice, Crist's record on abortion is mixed at best, and he once called himself pro-life when he was an independent.  He also supported capital punishment, which is about as popular with Democrats as fast food is with Frenchmen.  He was also against same-sex unions before he was for it.  The anti-Crist ads the DeSantis campaign hopes to run have, apparently, already written themselves.

Maybe the third time to try to win statewide office is going to be the charm for Crist, because DeSantis is such an awful human being who is trying his darnedest to make Florida resemble Fascist Italy, right down to interfering with private businesses like Disney and instituting racist and homophobic education policies designed to indoctrinate children and teenagers into espousing black-shirt values as adults.  The sad truth is many Florida voters love their Duce, and this could be Crist's last stand as a Florida politician.

Right now, I think the best way Crist can become a governor again is if he moves to a Democratic state.

Val Demings? I'll get to her later.