Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL), who is the Democrat Gubernatorial nominee in Florida running against Governor Ron DeSantis (R), may have just tanked his political campaign over who he decided to pick as his running mate. Not that he really stood a chance in the first place.
Crist is already in bad shape with Republican voters who he completely alienated Wednesday during an interview by suggesting they have “hate in their heart” after telling them he didn’t want their vote.
When asked about his message for Floridians who support current GOP Governor Ron DeSantis and how he’d seek to win their vote in November, Crist didn’t hesitate to disavow their support for his campaign.
“Those who support the governor should stay with him and vote for him and I don’t want your vote,” Crist bellowed. “If you have that hate in your heart, keep it there,” he added in something of a Hillary Clintonesque “basket of deplorables” comment.
But Crist may have put the nail in the coffin with his running mate pick is who is almost certain to undo all of DeSantis’s hard work amongst the education sector.
On Friday it was revealed he was going to choose Karla Hernández-Mats as his running mate, the president of United Teachers of Dade. According to John Kennedy with the Tallahassee Democrat, she heads the largest teachers union in the Southeast.
Kennedy’s report highlights a few examples of Crist and Hernández-Mats’ remarks, which seemed to double down on attacking DeSantis:
Karla Hernández-Mats, president of United Teachers of Dade, joined her running mate at the rally at Hialeah Middle School where he described her as “empathetic and compassionate” — qualities, Crist added, that “we don’t have in the governor’s office now.”
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“We are here today to defeat Ron DeSantis and bring decency and respect back to the state of Florida,” Hernández said, outlining her support for defending abortion rights, voting access and inclusion which Democrats have made a theme of this year’s contests.
Seeing that DeSantis recently endorsed 30 school board candidates across Florida of which 25 won in their Board Of Elections race on Tuesday, bringing on a DeSantis-hating Teachers Union-loving candidate is almost certain political suicide.
According to a report that the Florida GOP put together warning Floridians about Hernandez, Kennedy included a few brief comments from Republicans:
Republicans dismissed Hernández for being a union leader who resisted DeSantis’ push for reopening schools during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Julia Friedland called her, “the perfect fit for lockdown lover Crist’s unpopular, anti-parents campaign.”
The DeSantis War Room Twitter account, as well as Christina Pushaw, who this month transitioned from DeSantis’ press secretary to the rapid response director for DeSantis’ re-election campaign, put forth several tweets exposing Hernandez for the disaster she would for the Florida education system.
Pushaw highlighted that Hernandez slammed parents who were against mask mandates, suggesting that they “are not a parent” and that they were soldiers “of faux rage, false narratives, and political interests.”
DeSantis War Room also posted a video of Hernandez viciously attacking “moms, dads, and students in Miami-Dade County who stood up for their rights and fought to end the lockdown lobbyists’ assault on normalcy.”
Hernandez, who clearly wants to bring back permanent masks and lockdowns at even the slightest whiff of a sniffle, also publicly mourned Cuba’s dictator Fidel Castro, which is definitely not a good look for the freest state in America.
