Former candidate Alex Sink has decided not to run again for the 2014 Florida governorship.
...Sink's decision not to run was widely expected in Florida political circles, as she showed little sign of putting together a campaign and was up front about her ambivalence and her family's opposition. But until Friday, the former Bank of America leader and former state chief financial officer continued to keep the door open and several times pushed back her deadline for announcing a decision...
...Sink lost to Rick Scott by just over 1 percentage point in 2010, despite being outspent dramatically and facing a Republican tidal wave across the country. Still, many Democrats complained that Sink ran an anemic, excessively cautious campaign against a weak Republican who had run a company that paid the largest fine in U.S. history for Medicare fraud...
This basically leaves the way open for Charlie Crist, former (relatively sane) Republican turned (hopefully still sane) Democrat in the wake of the wingnut-ification of the GOP. While Crist has his critics even among his now Democratic allies (primarily that he's an opportunist), few can criticize his campaign skills. Crist left the governor's office under relatively popular terms: the only ones who hated him were the hard-line Republicans who felt betrayed when he fled the party in 2010 when the state organization turned far right.
Crist's polling numbers into this year are pretty solid against Rick "F-ck The State" Scott. If there had been a primary challenge between Crist, Sink, Nan Rich (so far the only other candidate in the race, but failing to raise interest or funds to keep up) and the others, Crist would have won but the primary process would have been brutal considering the left wing base of the Democrats won't trust him. A majority of Democrats seem to be backing Crist primarily because moderates and disgruntled former Republicans like Crist, and the primary objective - get rid of Scott - is something a majority of Floridians can get behind.
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