Weird: Something about Charlie ... by gimleteye

In "Charlie Crist's charm offensive brings big bucks", The Miami Herald gives a bright nod to the fundraising ability of a governor who would be US Senator. "Charlie doesn't have any shame," says Ron Book, who knows a thing or two about shamelessness.

Another top lobbyist calls his victory in the 2010 race "unquestionable". I'm not so sure. The Herald notes, "As Florida led the nation this summer in foreclosures and jobs lost, Crist raised an average of $86,000 a day." Today, the response of Crist's primary challenger, former House speaker Marco Rubio just seems plaintive, "You've got the highest unemployment rate in Florida since 1975. It's fair to ask, 'Who is in charge? Who is working on these things?" Rubio-- who seems mainly different from Crist on the issue of partisanship-- may gain traction before the primary is over.

I have a different take: what did Charlie give away, to raise all this money? What irks the most is his abject performance in the recent session of the legislature, signing into law gross mistakes that will allow developers to gain an even stronger chokehold on zoning and permitting for large, unneeded projects like the mass of crappy housing developments that are now ghost towns. But that's what you do, I guess, to get all that campaign cash. Beholden to everyone, and, to no one: I don't think so. Charlie Crist comes across as frugal, happy and obsessed with raising campaign cash. He's as attentive to personal contact as old Poppy Bush was, back in the day. I suppose, by that standard, the popular governor is successful. But isn't anyone else bothered by the fact that Florida's economy is in a ditch and in Charlie's world, the partying just goes on? Weird.


PS. On this blog, I haven't given Mel Martinez, former US Senator from Florida, much credit. His resignation was mostly a mystery to me. I've assumed-- since he was recruited by the Bush team-- that he was pretty much cut from the same cloth. Certainly, I'm no fan of what happened to housing markets under his watch both as chair of the Orange County Commission and later as top housing official under Bush, championing the "ownership society" that was really one of the greatest Ponzi Schemes in US economic history. But word arrives that Martinez was truly dispirited by ugly and nasty personal politics of destruction that boiled up under the white bread management of Republican affairs by Karl Rove and that, in particular, the party lynch mob assembled for the Sotomayor hearings for the US Supreme Court really, really got under his skin. Martinez is probably too much of a party loyalist to admit it publicly, but if this is true-- and this comes from an informed source-- he has my respect for resigning from one of the best jobs in US politics.