(Thumbnail: St. Petersburg Times)

"Frankly the easy thing for me to do would be to run for reelection as governor, but for me it's never been about doing what's easy, it's been about doing what's right for the people first." (Fox News)

Gov. Charlie Crist is ditching Republicans for an Independent run for the open U.S. Senate seat in Florida.  Crist's support from fellow Republicans has plummetted, and now he's in danger of losing the seat to Republican and Tea Party-backed Marco Rubio.

On MSNBC, Sen. Judd Gregg says Crist abandoned the Republian party because he's facing stiff competition from Rubio.

"I think it says he was in a tough primary and knew he wasn't going to win and decided to choose another course of action ... And really, if you think you can't win and you decide to step out of a primary, that's your choice."

But an article from Tampa Bay Online says Crist had to leave the Republican party — he's too moderate.

"That's the irreconcilable problem: Crist is a moderate in a party whose leaders no longer tolerate it.  Always distrustful of him, Republican screamers officially turned on the governor after he accepted federal stimulus benefits."

On Fox News, a reporter says swapping parties won't bring Crist any closer to the Senate seat.

"It is tremendously difficult. Tremendously difficult anywhere in the United States of America to try to win office outside of the two-party system. For better or worse while there are allowances for Independents and smaller less known, even fringe third parties this is Republican and Democratic two-party system. What Charlie Crist has done is separated himself from it."

But on the conservative blog Human Events, a writer says Crist — the independent — does have support from both sides.

"Along with the teachers, Crist can count on support from some old friends ... [and] former Vermont Governor and Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean 'promised to write Charlie a check' as well."

Finally, on CNN, Candy Crowley says don't count Crist out just yet — he's outperforming competitors in the polls.

"There was a three-way poll between Rubio, between Kendrick Meek, who is the Democratic candidate and Gov. Crist, and Gov. Crist came out slightly on top at about 32 percentage points to Rubio's 30, so there's good reason in the polling for Crist to do this."

So what do you think?  Does Crist have a chance at winning the open seat as an Independent?