There’s The Tea Party On The Right And The Whigs On The Left (?)

It’s been a long time since someone ran on the Whig party ticket but that’s exactly what’s happening in Florida:

Gerritzen is running for the seat now held by first-term Democrat Alan Grayson. He appears to be all alone on the Whig side, but Grayson also has plenty of competition from the Republican Party.

Gerritzen favors replacing the federal income tax with a sales tax, and “he wants to remake the American education system in the model of that of Iceland, which emphasizes high rates of literacy, early childhood education and taxpayer-funded collegiate studies,” the newspaper reports.

Two things here. One, from the second paragraph a good way to think of Gerritzen is as a challenger from the left. Another is that the Whig party folded up and eventually joined the Republican party (which, arguably, shares more with the modern day Democrats than today’s Republicans). I’m not so sure how this will play. Florida isn’t the most liberal state in the Union but on the other hand, Florida Dems may be tired of Grayson’s occasional ill-advised outburst. It’ll be a good race to watch.

–Jasper Hart