
Wait a minute, many might say, wasn't Crist a Republican Governor before? Yes, he was, albeit a Republican of many stripes while claiming to be conservative. After one term in office and sensing that many were not happy with the direction he was taking Florida, he decided to run for the Senate instead of reelection as Governor. In that election Conservative Republican Rick Scott became Governor, a position to which he will seek reelection this Fall.
Crist then decided to try and make a personal comeback with the party and he ran in the Republican primary for the open U.S. Senate seat vacated by Republican Mel Martinez. Losing to Marco Rubio, he showed his true colors by announcing he would become an Independent and run in the Fall against Rubio and Kendrick Meek (Democrat) in the general election. He lost badly to Rubio and many of us hoped that we were finally done with Charlie.
We weren't so lucky. During the 2012 Presidential election Crist came out big for Barack Obama as he had now made the full switch to Democrat. And now he has announced he is going to challenge Scott, who is up for reelection. Polls currently show Crist ahead, but they did the same thing when he first was running against Rubio, and the volatility of swing voters is almost legend in Florida politics, so anything is possible. But for a state that generally has a conservative legislature, the election of Crist, now an unabashed liberal publicly supporting Obama's job killing agenda would be a disaster.
Time will tell. With a large liberal base in the Miami-Dade area, a more moderate swing voter populace on the I-4 corridor between Daytona and Tampa, and with the northern and panhandle parts (what I call the "Real Florida") being heavily Republican, the game will all be about who turns out the vote. But if Crist is successful, he will immediately set out to turn Florida upside down.
From abortion, to gay marriage, big government programs such as Obamacare, even welfare and drug availability and the second amendment, a Governor Crist would be a pawn for the remainder of the Obama term. He is like a magnet seeking a piece of lead to cling to and he has already shown that Obama is the anchor.
And I also want to point one other little fact that shows how the National Republican Party has totally missed the mark in the past. When Crist, clearly showing liberal tendencies as governor decided to run for the Senate, the Republican Senate Campaign Committee, led by Texan John Cornyn, came out strongly in support of Crist. Cornyn is the same Senator who just this week supported giving Barack Obama a blank check to continue deficit spending. This may be out of place in this article, but I thought it was important to show how out of whack the National Republicans have become. And now Texas has the opportunity to finish off Cornyn as well, since he is up for reelection.
Floridian's, look at the flip flops on every issue and the lack of any solid principles behind Crist and you'll know what to do. Send Orange Charlie back to the tanning booth full time.