His political evolution has been gradual. Crist last month penned a Washington Post editorial bashing Gov. Scott’s handling of voting rights, and he has helped and endorsed a handful of Democrats, including Sen. Bill Nelson.

But Crist’s potential bid as a Democratic gubernatorial candidate won’t be easy. State Sen. Nan Rich, a liberal Democrat from Weston, is running. Former candidate and state CFO Alex Sink might try again. They’ll note all the conservative positions Crist once had before he jettisoned them.

Crist, however, could prove popular with black and Jewish voters for his liberal record when it came to voting rights, hurricane insurance, schools and downplaying social conservatism. After calling himself pro-life for years, Crist vetoed an abortion-related sonogram bill.

Crist’s precipitous fall in 2010 was a shock. He was one of Florida’s most popular politicians, a force of political nature who had been on five of the last seven ballots. He has won statewide election three times as a Republican.

Now he’s raining on the very convention he helped bring to his home base of Tampa Bay just when the GOP had to cancel its Monday events due to the threat of Isaac.

Republicans are telling the party faithful to remind voters and the media that Crist once ran as clone of former Gov. Jeb Bush and President Reagan. They also unearthed Crist's old Tweets from 2010, when he was running as an Obamacare-bashing Republican.

“I’ve said it time and again,” former GOP spokesman Brian Hughes said in an email, “he is the silly putty of Florida politics, he’ll bend whatever direction you want and if you smash him against the newspaper he’ll offer you a poll-tested, mirror version.”

But the Republican Party has its own flip-floppery to reconcile with. When Crist was a Republican, the party once praised his handling of the economy and criticized reporters for noting all the struggles that happened on Crist’s watch.

At the same, Democrats like former party spokesman Eric Jotkoff bashed Crist just before the August 2008 RNC for “his $250,000 junket to Europe touring Buckingham Palace and sipping lattes at cafes across Paris as Florida’s economy tanked.”

Jotkoff is now a spokesman for Obama’s campaign, which selected Crist to write the Tampa Bay Times op-ed that was paired with a column penned by Republican Mitt Romney.

Now Democrats love Crist and Republicans don’t.

The amnesia and intellectual contortions by the parties and Crist over his record is notable because it’s so typical in a political environment that’s like the weather in Florida.

If you don’t like what the political parties and politicians are saying, stick around. It’ll change or blow over.