Charlie Crist: Beyond The Tan
By Jennn Fusion | Related entries in 2008 Election, Florida, McCain, Republicans, Veep
From the depths of Tallahassee, Florida comes a man so qualified it’s shocking that he’s not running his own vice president campaign already! Governor Charlie Crist once served as Vice President of the student body at Florida State University where he studied Law.
Under Jeb Bush, he became Deputy Secretary of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation in 1999 and Education Commissioner of Florida in 2000. He’s cracked down on fraud cases, while upholding civil rights, and he’s garnered support from celebrities like John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted.
Crist then served as State Attorney General from 2003 and 2007, before taking residency as governor. In Florida, he has a soaring 70% approval rating, even though some local journalists dubbed him as “Empty Chair Charlie” because he’s spent so much time on the campaign trail.
In recent months, he’s called for an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases to put Florida on the Environmentalism Movement Map, he’s taken bold steps to make health insurance more affordable in the Sunshine State and he’s offered residents property tax relief — all things that are on the McCain agenda. It seems these two see eye to eye!
Sure, Crist’s had his fair share of ethics and fundraising red flags, but is that even newsworthy these days? One blogger speculated that marriage would be the tell-tale sign of Crist’s campaign for the Vice Presidency. (Let’s hope Americans aren’t so petty!)
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Florida, McCain, Republicans, Veep. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:19 pm
So in other words he’s as full of crap as the next guy when it comes to making ludicrous promises that he couldn’t possibly have any intention of keeping unless he were insane, innumerate, or both?
Don’t hold your breath waiting for “property tax relief.” That’s just the promise-maker format of “I feel your pain.”
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Actually the property tax relief (Amendment 1) was passed back in January to save homeowners $240/year and will save tax payers a total of $9.3 billion over 5 years. It certainly has a few flaws… for example, it favors long-term homeowners more than new homeowners and there’s still disparity — one person could pay $9,000 while another pays $25,000 on almost identical homes. It seems that most people were happy to get a break, though.
Crist has an excellent record on the environment thus so far.
http://www.charliecrist.com/news_releases.php
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:40 am
Yeah, I talked with someone from Florida about it. You guys all voted in a “screw the new buyers” law. Real nice. Y’all oughta be proud.
Now, for the numerate folks, the real question is whether government budgets were cut to pay for this “relief” or if instead they made up the shortfall somewhere else. Because if its the latter, then it’s not really relief for taxpayers, it’s just good old fashioned cost-shifting, handing you a dollar for your right pocket while taking one out of your left.
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I’m not even FROM Florida :)