‘Worn-Out Old Donkey’: DeSantis Destroys Crist in Florida Governor Debate

Has anyone checked on Charlie Crist this morning? He was left comatose and unresponsive after the beating Ron DeSantis delivered last night at the Florida Governor’s debate.

The hits just kept coming, mostly because Crist, the former Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat, is a snake of a politician trying to slither and weasel away from his own positions and statements.

Let’s just start with the headline clip. The moderator asked DeSantis about running in 2024 against Biden or whoever the Democratic nominee would be. DeSantis shrewdly turned the question around and landed the answer as a smackdown of his current opponent:

This was one glorious line:

“Well listen, I know that Charlie’s interested in talking about 2024 and Joe Biden, but I just want to make things very, very clear. The only worn-out old donkey I’m looking to put out to pasture is Charlie Crist”

The look on Crist’s face after that delivery is priceless. It’s at that moment he knows he’s outmatched in this contest. It’s not that Crist doesn’t have answers, he’s a polished speaker in his own right. It’s that his answers are couched in mistruths and distortions of the record and facts. His brand of politics is simply not where the Florida electorate is and there’s nothing he can say to move it in his direction.

Here are some more clips of the DeSantis/Crist debate. The “Nation’s Report Card” that came out this week couldn’t have arrived at a better time for DeSantis as this clip demonstrates when talking about education and school closures resulting from prolonged Covid lockdowns:

Ironically, perhaps Crist’s biggest flub of the night came when he decided to start painting DeSantis as the “lockdown Governor” for the short period Florida was actually closed early in the pandemic. As a rebuttal, DeSantis pointed out it was Crist, among other Florida Democrats, who put their name on a letter begging DeSantis to keep the state closed, keep schools closed, and keep businesses closed:

Where does Crist begin to compete with an answer and record like this:

“I rejected Charlie Crist’s lockdown letter, I kept this state open, and I kept this state free, and we now have the biggest budget surplus in the history of Florida, we have a 2.5% unemployment rate, the lowest on record, and we just did the biggest tax cut in Florida history”

Abortion was also a topic and DeSantis articulated his position well with regard to the 15-week abortion ban he signed as Governor:

According to the latest polls, DeSantis leads this race by an average of 10 points. The end result coming on Election Day probably won’t even be that close after the debate beatdown and the clear contrasts on display between both candidates. Crist represents the party of lockdowns, school closures, mandates, and Joe Biden’s inflation. The choice is abundantly clear.

In other news, an early congratulations to Gov. DeSantis on his re-election victory. Too premature? Fine. Congratulations on his likely victory.

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Nate Ashworth

The Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Election Central. He's been blogging elections and politics for over a decade. He started covering the 2008 Presidential Election which turned into a full-time political blog in 2012 and 2016 that continues today.

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