Heading into Sunday morning's CNN debate, Gov. Charlie Crist was already having a bad day.

Behind the sunny smile and the ever-tan is a man who knows he has a better chance of squeezing another $10 million out of BP than he does being elected Florida's next senator.

With early voting under way, every poll taken of the U.S. Senate race in Florida, including our Sunshine State News Poll, has Crist trailing Marco Rubio by double digits. Very large ones at that. But it isn't just the poll results that now pummel that eternal optimism of his. And it's not his campaign's near-empty war chest -- though that's a huge concern.

It's that history is telling him it's over.

It's that his misery has company.

It's that Crist, the No Party Affiliation candidate, has been swept along in a current of no-way-Jose independents and third-partyites seeking high political office.

Wall Street Journal guest columnist Peter Brown compares the independent/third-party syndrome to varieties of flowers that "bloom in the spring and die in October when conditions become much less hospitable."

Crist's flower was in peak bloom in the midst of the Gulf oil spill. He appeared barefoot on beaches with his trousers rolled up, he served as guest panelist on network news shows, he unleashed a barrage of letters to BP demanding money for Florida's lost tourism. In short, he got to showcase his current office and hint at what he could do for Florida in Washington, D.C.

Crist might have been the least happy Floridian the day the gushing well was capped.

But our governor isn't the only one-time-Republican-or-Democrat-turned-independent/third-party to become the Incredible Shrinking Candidate. It's happening all over America. Brown cites them:

* Tim Cahill in Massachusetts went from Democrat to independent to run for governor. He looked good for a while in his three-way race, then poof.

* Eliot Cutler, once a Dem and an aide to President Bill Clinton, wants to be an independent governor. His chances have gone from fair to nil.

* U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a former GOPer, is running as an independent in Rhode Island and may -- may -- still have a chance.

* Of course, funny things are going on in Alaska. The situation is fuzzy there after Sen. Lisa Murkowski lost the GOP primary and is running a write-in campaign for her seat.

* Don't forget Tom Tancredo from Colorado. Tancredo is a former Republican congressman who went third-party after the GOP primary nominated political newcomer Dan Maes. He might be able to defy the odds because, even though he's behind the Democratic nominee, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, he's still within firing range.

* Candidates who identify themselves as tea partiers abound in Election 2010. But most of them poll to single digits. That's understandable. Voters who identify themselves as tea partiers are largely voting Republican.