While you were out getting drenched covering the anti-mayors convention protesters ... Joy Reid ... Florida Politics was reminding me why I didn't like Charlie Crist during the gubernatorial campaign, especially during the debates. In short: he's an empty sun-tan:
After all those years of receiving a pass from Florida's compliant newspaper company employees, Charlie wilts before a less than difficult crowd.
"The first reviews are in on Charlie Crist's performance as a high-profile stump speaker on the Republican circuit. It ain't pretty, and it's why the Veep-O-Meter swings backward this week." The speech by John McCain's potential running mate to Orange County, Calif., Republicans last weekend really helped his party. "By showing unequivocally he would be a complete disaster for the GOP — the worst running mate since Dan Quayle," Orange County Register columnist Frank Mickadeit wrote in a column headlined "We know who McCain shouldn't pick."
"Mr. Crist looks great: … silver hair, warm smile, great tan, perfectly tailored suit of clothes, decent teeth. It's when he uses his facial musculature to try and form cogent sound that he falls apart." "The columnist said that in just nine minutes, Crist wrongly declared that Ronald Reagan hailed from Orange County and drew audible groans when he saluted Arnold Schwarzenegger — a moderate hardly loved in that bastion of conservatism.""I would say he was stunned and distracted for minutes, as he absorbed the lack of popularity in this room for the governor," one Republican activist, Jon Fleischman, wrote on a California political Web site.
Crist's support for McCain's new proposal to allow drilling off Florida, may endear him to McCain, but it's not helping Crist's national image. The political Web site the Hotline even suggested it may have sunk Crist's veep prospects if Florida voters recoil: If "taking one for the team" compromises your home-state standing, doesn't that make you less helpful to the party? "California speech a step backward for Crist".
Imagine Charlie in a "debate" with, say ... Hillary Clinton, Jim Webb, Bill Richardson, Tom Daschle, Sam Nunn, Ed Rendell or any of the others in the Obama Veepstakes. I'd pay for one of them tickets
Me too! Did I mention that Miss Charlie also won't be on the ticket because he's gay? And how would John McCain explain THAT to Dr. Dobson?
| Labels: 2008 election, Charlie Crist, John McCain, presidential candidates, veepstakes |
