What is Charlie Crist thinking? Well …

Channeling the governor.

Everybody wants to know what I'm going to do. I still have that much going for me. Ha! Let's see Marco Rubio beat my headlines for the next 10 days.

I know, but I'm not saying yet.

Admittedly, this hasn't worked out the way I wanted. I was going to be governor and then a U.S. senator, and when Mel Martinez quit early and I put the Maestro in the seat to hold it, everything seemed all set.

Then Rubio managed to run a campaign against me from the right. Good grief! I invented populist conservative sloganeering. Well, okay, I didn't. But I worked for guys like Connie Mack who did. Lower taxes! More freedom!

Some gratitude! Didn't I keep the governor's chair for Republicans in 2006? What, did they want a Democrat instead? Now even Connie has quit my campaign because I vetoed the teacher bill. My feelings are hurt, although I would never say it out loud. You don't cancel a lifetime of loyalty for disagreement over a lousy bill.

Nobody believes that I vetoed the teacher bill just because it was a bad idea. Look, my father was a school board guy. There are teachers in my family. The Legislature rammed that thing through with no compromise. So I vetoed it.

Running as an independent? I admit there's some attraction to the whole "reasonable middle" thing. But it's dicey. I'd lose some of my best Republican friends. Democrats who cheer me in April aren't necessarily going to vote for me in November, either. I could lose and be finished forever.

Besides, I've spent my whole career talking about the party of Lincoln and Ronald Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt. I suppose I could come up with something like, "I haven't changed my principles; I have decided this is the best way to pursue them." But that sounds thin even to me. Even if I won, I'm kaput in the Republican Party, no matter if I went back later. No vice presidency for me.

Rubio is killing me in the polls, but like I said, this is April. I'm not done yet. I'll fight. And if I do lose? Hey, I've lost before. I lost my very first Republican primary for the Legislature. I got killed by Bob Graham in the 1998 U.S. Senate race and that worked out, didn't it? Got to be education commissioner, attorney general and then governor.

I'm only 53, after all. Suppose I lose and play Good Soldier. Endorse Marco, support him, campaign for him. Some people will ask, "What about all that bad stuff you said about him?" But that's easy. People who lose primaries do it all the time.

Good soldier. Good will. Good sport. Rebuild the chips. And then, still in the prime of life, I get a shot at Bill Nelson not far down the road, or if all else fails, at Bill Young's House seat in St. Petersburg and get to Washington anyway.

There's a third choice, too — I could drop out of the race. Do it gracefully. "I congratulate Marco Rubio on the outstanding campaign he has run," I could say. "My plan is to help him win and make sure Florida is represented by conservative principles in Washington. This is no time to put personal ambition above the nation's priorities. As for me, if I can be of service to Florida in some other way in the future, then I will." And I still get to be the Good Soldier.

Hey, I'm not saying I like it. Just that when life hands you lemons, the tough get going. Or however that saying goes.

I still have 10 days, though.