Charlie Crist Loses His Mojo

Florida Governor Charlie Crist is increasingly facing troubles in his campaign for US Senate. He faces a strong principled conservative challenger, Marco Rubio. He has been caught blatantly lying about his support for Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan and national columnist, George Will, has proclaimed Marco Rubio “a better choice for Florida.”

Fortunately, Florida has a real choice in the Republican primary. Marco Rubio, the former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, is a principled conservative who is becoming a leading voice against the excesses of the Obama administration.

Politico is reporting on Charlie Crist’s accumulating problems:

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is witnessing a sharp downturn in his political fortunes, imperiling his standing as the presumptive next senator from Florida and leaving Washington and Tallahassee wondering if the seemingly invincible Republican has lost his way.
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“Until a month and a half ago, it was a nonrace. Now it’s a race. And it has all to do with Charlie Crist himself,” said Brett Doster, a Tallahassee-based GOP strategist. “It’s, figure out how quickly you can take a gun and put it down your leg and shoot yourself.”

Chief among them is Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package — and Crist’s head-scratching recent claim on CNN that he “didn’t endorse” it. In fact, Crist had called the plan “fabulous” earlier this year and even appeared at an event with the president in Fort Myers to promote it.

“We know that it’s important that we pass this stimulus package,” Crist said while campaigning for the stimulus with Obama in February.

Republicans say Crist has stumbled badly with his stimulus denial — comparing it to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry’s perplexing and extremely damaging assertion in the 2004 presidential campaign that he voted “for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”
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In another apparent effort to distance himself from Obama, who is extremely unpopular with the GOP grass roots, Crist went so far as to deny that he knew the president was in Jacksonville on Oct. 26 — even though published e-mails would later show that Crist’s staff was made aware of Obama’s visit three days earlier.

To some, Crist’s abrupt and awkward attempts to distance himself from Obama are a naked attempt to curry favor with conservatives, which raises questions about his political character.

“Somebody once labeled [Democratic Sen.] Bill Nelson as an empty suit, and the perception is that Charlie isn’t far away from that,” said Tom Slade, a former Florida Republican Party chairman. “There is the perception that there isn’t anybody there but a really nice guy, and Republicans aren’t really interested right now in who is the sweetest, nicest guy.”

Read the whole article here.

Tagged as: Charlie Crist, Elections, Florida, Marco Rubio