Bi-Party Crist Wont Pick Partner
Florida Governor and one-time leading Senatorial Candidate Charlie Crist is finding that coming out as bi-party is not the cakewalk that he was hoping for - his old friends feel betrayed and confused, his new friends are somewhat fickle, and his enemies are gleeful as he bends and twists to distance himself from the very party whose supporters he must approach if he is to have any chance to win.
Sunday on CNN's State of the Union, Crist declined to answer the caucus question - if elected, will he caucus with Democrats or Republicans? As he has for weeks, he evaded the question by asserting that he will "caucus with the people of Florida." Unfortunately, the people of Florida don't hand out committee assignments.
A few days ago, he tried to go both ways on healthcare. He stated that he would have voted for healthcare reform then he corrected himself and said he would not have voted for the bill. He doesn't like it - not one bit! But since it's already passed and everything, he thinks we should keep it and make it better. Of course, since he wont be sitting on any committees, his opinion may not matter all that much.
And last week in liberal Broward County, he thanked God that he was no longer a Republican then travelled to a much less progressive part of the state and bragged about being a "Jeb Bush Republican."
But even as Chain Gang Charlie repaints himself as a bi-party milquetoast with compassionate leanings who still enjoys the occasional hippie punching, Kendrick Meek and Florida Democrats are gearing up to remind voters of Crist's true preferences:
(Click to listen to wav audio file.)
This is Charlie Crist calling to set the record straight. I'm pro life, I oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants, I support traditional marriage, and I have never supported a new tax or big spending program.
The fact that Meek, a real Democrat, won the party nomination over self funding former Republican Jeff Greene will make life difficult for Crist. Democrats will use the boastful conservative's own words against him again and again and Democratic voters will continue to come home to Meek - Meek presents a clear progressive choice vs. Chain Gang Charlie's newly found wishy washy middle-of-the-roadism.
Meanwhile, Marc Rub's (Marco Rubio has had the vowels removed from the end of his name for conduct unbecoming a Hispanic, per Tampa's La Gaceta newspaper) campaign is hammering Crist as a turncoat and newly enflamed liberal. Crist wont be winning too many votes from this wing of his spurned party.
So far, Crist refuses to pick sides, but he can't win with independents only, his old party still hates him, and Democrats are warming to Meek - Meek is far and away the best candidate on the issues, and he is, in fact, just the kind of "better Democrat" that we need in DC.
Crist's approval ratings are dismal and he is a man without a party. Many observers do not see a way for him to win unless he promises to caucus with the Democrats, but just as he missed his oppurtunity to switch parties and clean Meek's clock in the Dem primary, Crist may again be waiting too long to pick sides.
No Longer Beating a Dead Horse
I give up - there's really no reason to rally behind the only real Democrat in the Democratic primary race. No Party Charlie Crist is with us on everything except what he's not with us on and that's good enough for me, so the primary is officially moot.
Look, I will always like Kendrick - he's such a nice guy! But his campaign is teh suck. It lacks visibility and support, and Meek is not a gifted orator, and he's not as cool and popular as Charlie, so it's over. I can not vote for Kendrick. I am going to invite Crist into my life.
Some say we need work hard to elect better Democrats. Balderdash. I used to be in that camp, but I have seen the light - a halo, actually, just behind Crist's head.
I don't care if we have a real Democrat on the general election ballot in November. I don't need a chance to vote for a candidate who stands for my values.
I am going to vote for Charlie Crist come hell or oily water. What could possibly go wrong?
To this point, Charlie Crist has been nimbly avoiding the literal gusher of indictments and arrests and trials and IRS audits and FBI investigations and lavish credit card spending sprees and, well, just about everything bad that's been happening to the Florida GOP. So I'm betting that none of those scandals will touch him, and I'm absolutely certain that no new bombshell revelation will pop up that might affect his general election chances.
In fact, I have such faith in Crist that I'm betting everything I have.
Of course, I'm not worried that after the Democratic primary Crist will realize that I now have no leverage over him - that I've already placed my bet and that I will have no recourse were he to kick me in the face. I don't need a plan 'B'. I'm positive that Crist is different. He wont hurt me. Honest.
And by backing Crist now I can absolutely guarantee that Marco Rubio will not win the election.
After all, there's no way that anything that no one could have predicted could possibly have come to pass by the time I cast my ballot for Charlie Crist in November.
So I see no reason to even pay any attention to the Democratic primary much less back a candidate just because his values line up nicely with mine and the rich carpetbagger he's running against is a real schmuck. This would be a waste of my valuable time and it really does not matter one iota who the Democratic nominee is because I am going to vote for Charlie Crist.
What could possibly go wrong?
Kendrick Meek could really use our help, but none of us like him anymore, so just don't bother.
The Chain Gang Charlie Crist is Born
“I'm as conservative as any governor. I'm chain gang Charlie. I'm pro-gun. I'm pro life,”
That's Charlie Crist way back in 2009 before he made a sincere and heartfelt decision to completely change.
Charlie Crist recently became the darling of Florida's teachers as he polished his indie cred by vetoing an absolutely horrible education bill. But he hasn't always had such concerns for schools.
In the 1990's, Florida had a choice: we could start down the road toward the proper funding of education and programs for the poor, or we could lock more people up and devise humiliating ways to publicly shame them.
Led by Republican Legislators like Chain Gang Charlie Crist, Florida decided to follow the lead of Alabama and Arizona and spend money on shackled work gangs and other high profile regressive prison policies.
After spearheading the legislation that cost 2 billion dollars and would force Florida's prisons chief to "require selected inmates to perform labor wearing leg irons in chain gang work groups," Crist embarked on a fact finding mission with the secretary of the Department of Corrections Harry Singletary to have a look at Alabama's trendsetting chain gang revival and maybe get some ideas for Florida's big debut.
As Singletary whined to a reporter that "Everyone wants a silver bullet, and this is not the silver bullet. This is not the answer to the crime problem. We could have 45,000 people on chain gangs, but if people are still having babies at 13, if we're not educating folks or if there's not enough jobs, then we're still going to have problems," Crist was bizy checking out the latest in Chain Gang Haute Couture:
Singletary came away from Alabama convinced that the only practical implementation of the legislature's demands involved individual shackles rather than the Alabama model which featured prisoners chained to each other.
But Charlie Crist had a pretty specific image in mind when he first fantasized his chain gang law, and in that image a group of 5 beautifully muscled bad boys, dark skinned, heavily perspiring, bound with handcuffs and leg irons and shackled together with chains break rocks beside the Interstate. People driving through get all warm and fuzzy as they pass within inches of these dangerous and swarthy criminals who are being beneficially overseen by several heavily armed white men with orders to shoot to kill.
Oh, wait - that's not the image of Charlie with his "gang" that I was trying to post... let's try this oped cartoon from the Gainesville Sun instead:
Good stuff, and Chain Gang Charlie was not about to allow the teary eyed liberal prisons chief to mess with the exquisitely detailed image that Crist had spent years thinking about.
Crist wrote the Governor. He wrote editorials. He complained to reporters. He helpfully pointed out that gangs of 5 were way better than gangs of one, but to no avail. Chain Gang Charlie's chain gangs were about to be ruined by Singletary and no one seemed to care.
But state legislators say the program clashes with what they envisioned when they passed the chain gang law earlier this year. Senator Charlie Crist, a Republican from St. Petersburg who sponsored the law, said individual chains would pose a higher safety risk because they would not prevent an inmate from jumping into the back of a car to escape. Mr. Crist also said the setup made the punishment less harsh.
"The idea is not to be cruel but to have an appropriate punishment that also serves as a deterrent," he said.
The Florida Department of Corrections is scheduled to start the program with 90 inmates at three prisons, and expand it by Dec. 1 to 210 inmates at seven prisons.
Corrections officials like Mr. Singletary have been reluctant partners in reinstituting chain gangs, which were abandoned in Florida and other states in the 1940's, but which this year made a modest comeback, reflecting the nation's tougher stance on crime. While supporters see them as an effective way to send an anti-crime message, critics cringe at the spectacle of shackled men, most black, stirring images of slavery.
The executive director of the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, Alvin J. Bronstein, said the Alabama chain gang program had led to more injuries among inmates, for example, when someone tripped and fell, dragging others down. He said he had also received reports of fights among inmates because of slow or fast walkers in the chain.
Mr. Bronstein said the Florida and Arizona programs were more humane and preferable because they reduced the risk of accidents and tension among inmates.
So Charlie got his chain gangs, and they were no walk in the park, but they were not as punitive and regressive as Crist had fervently imagined they might be.
And Chain Gang Charlie Crist is Born.