“I’m a civil rights activist — why are you doing this to me?” bleated a supporter of Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist as security removed him from his preferred candidate’s only debate against Republican incumbent Ron DeSantis last week.

Crist’s unenviable task has been to convince Floridians that they are worse off now than they were four years ago, or to explode some wedge issue that would bring a game-changing eruption to his sagging campaign.

He has also tried to pitch his candidacy as a last-ditch stop to frustrate DeSantis’s possible presidential ambitions, a reactive line that merely exposes what a hopelessly inadequate leader Crist is.

The debate delivered none of this. Flailing about for straws to grasp, Crist was at one point reduced to claiming DeSantis is the “most anti-business governor in America,” which made the audience erupt in peals of laughter — at Crist.

He blamed DeSantis for high energy prices, a hopeless allegation since high energy costs are a national problem directly associated with Biden administration policies that Crist supports. Florida, as DeSantis correctly rebutted in any case, now has the country’s fifth lowest gas prices.

Crist also grumbled about home insurance premiums, which are admittedly high in Florida, but sounded more like an old man angrily sending back soup in a deli than a credible challenger.