No surprise that Kevin Cate would play the underdog card in his latest blog claiming Charlie Crist didn't really lose on Nov. 4, he got screwed out of the governor's office.
That's right, screwed. Bamboozled. Maybe even cheated.
And how did that happen? Blame mean old Rick Scott dipping into his personal fortune at the eleventh hour.
Cate had to write something like this. I felt it coming. He had to make Charlie Crist look heroic. As Charlie's campaign adviser, he can thus remain the gallant, loyal knight who fought against all odds until the last bloody corpse had fallen on its shield.
Make no mistake, Kevin Cate is a sharp, young political consultant with solid Obama campaign creds and offices in St. Petersburg and Tallahassee. I admired his work, especially for the president. But I must tell you, I think this commentary of his,"How Charlie Crist Won" is a wildly delusional leap even for me -- who loves an edgy turn of phrase and daring intent as much as anyone.
Click on the link above and read Cate's blog post first. Then let me tell you why I beg to differ, and why/how Charlie really lost the race for governor.
Money? Sure it was a factor. But, remember, Charlie had a double-digit lead practically out of the gate. How can Cate make moneyeverything?
"... With less than a month to go," he writes, "Rick Scott changed his own rules, bailing out his campaign with a $12.8 million stimulus package. That was smart. He would have lost without it. It allowed Scott to outspend Crist on TV by $33,452,935."
How many voters did those ads lure to the polls? I ask you. How many who hadn't voted already were convinced to stay home because of yet another attack on Charlie Crist? Can Cate really believe Charlie lost those 66,127 votes because of Scott's more-of-the-same, last-minute TV spots?
I submit, money doesn't even rank as high as third on the Crist flub-o-meter. Charlie had the whole of Trial Attorney World investing in him, and millions pouring in from the Big Dem cavalry -- Tom Steyer in California, Steve Mostyn in Texas, Michael Bloomberg in New York -- riding to the rescue with bags of cash for him and the Florida Democratic Party, month after month. And as the end of the campaign neared, Charlie was actually out-raising Scott.
Here's what I see as the top three reasons Charlie Crist lost Election 2014:
No. 3: That sloooow, humpy-bumpy start
We all remember the energetic "I'm in" announcement a year to the day ahead of the election. What we don't remember is a whole lot of heat after that. The holidays came and went, the legislative session got under way -- apart from the pre-session AP meeting at the Capitol, Charlie was seldom seen or heard.
In the meantime, he was hemorrhaging"star" campaign team members. Bill Hyres, his campaign manager, announced with great fanfare, never did actually start ... something rumored about a clash with Carole Crist, but that was never confirmed. But then Deputy Finance Director Michael Hoffman took a hike. So did his spokesperson Lauren Hitt. And then in April, after all of six days, another staffer hired to be a spokesman, ultra-progressive Eric Conrad, was canned.
Amid the disarray, along came true-Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson waffling over whether to jump in and save the day. To put it mildly, would-be donors were conflicted.
At that point, Charlie had a towering lead over an upside-down, inside-out Gov. Scott who almost nobody was predicting to recover. But Charlie's failure to get out there and hug Democrats in his own St. Petersburg district, or in North Florida -- in fact, anywhere -- it's the thing he does best, not improvise and ad-lib in speeches -- plus the failure to present a plan for going forward in any positive way ... none of it was there.
All it did was give voters a lot of uncontested time to concentrate on the things Scott was saying about him.
Next thing we knew, Charlie had moved to several rentals in the heart of blue-camp South Florida, in an effort to entice minorities, women and the traditional Democratic franchise that brought victory to Barack Obama in 2012.
No. 2: Failure to debate Nan Rich
This was Charlie Crist's biggest mistake. I wrote the story over and over again, as did many state newspapers. Nan Rich is a former state senator, former minority leader of the Senate, a Democrat's Democrat respected by Bill and Hillary Clinton and other notable party members. Yet, after two years of campaigning -- never mind where her poll numbers showed her to be -- neither the Florida Democratic Party nor the Crist campaign gave this legitimate candidate the courtesy of a primary debate.
I can't overstate this:Rich had won the respect of the people Charlie needed most, particularly in South Florida. The hard-core Democrats. The Democrats skeptical of born-agains, retrofitted from the other party.
Nan Rich's people were Charlie's target when he moved his campaign headquarters to Broward and Miami-Dade, but what did FDP leaders do? They publicly discredited Rich, denied her Emily's List support, demonized her most outspoken backers -- solid Democrats like Leslie Wimes who believes she has a right to choose her own candidate before the primary election.
In his commentary, Kevin Cate says of Charlie, "He never backed away from a tough reporter or tough issue." All indications are, he did on this one.
Whether the decision to avoid Nan Rich as if she didn't exist, to deny her a debate, was the party's idea, Charlie's campaign advisers' or the result of some pants-wetting fear in Charlie of confronting a lifelong Democrat who hasn't flip-flopped on anything in her life, it was a total clunker.
It wasn't Nan Rich's fault, yet she still is treated savagely for failing to quit when told. (And when I write about why more good people don't run for office, Nan will be my first example.)
But the fault here lies with the campaign for failing to provide a debate stage for Rich and Crist. It was a huge miscalculation. The kerfuffle droned on for months. And it left a sour taste with a lot of Democrats, and some independents, too.
No. 1: The head-to-head comparison
Most of all -- drum roll, please -- Charlie Crist lost because Floridians couldn't trust who he was, or what or where he would be next month, next year. Floridians couldn't name three issues he hadn't reversed his position on over a 20-year political career.
Both governors had checkered pasts. But where Charlie Crist might have been the guy voters would rather meet for a drink and a chat, Rick Scott was the one they could believe.
Scott won because Floridiansknew who he was. They knew his flaws and his strengths, knew what he would do, how he would react. They knew he liked being their governor, knew for sure he had the same priorities as they did, and they never feared he might want to be somewhere besides the governor's mansion in the next four years.
In the end, enough voters to make the difference finally realized they wouldn't be able to rely on Charlie Crist.
That's what did it. All the trial lawyers' horses and all the trial lawyers' men, couldn't put Charlie back together again.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
