Guest AuthorAs everyone now knows, former Gov. Charlie Crist wants to be Governor, again. As I have reported before, there are many Democratic officials who fear a Crist nomination because of all of the baggage that comes with him.
Charlie, as I’ve said before and will again, is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. He is personable, charming and he will tell you anything that you want to hear. And that’s especially easy for him because he has been on both sides of just about every key issue there is!
In fact, Charlie is such a great talker that if I wanted someone to convince me that the Earth is flat, I’d go see Charlie. Not only would he convince me that the Earth is flat, he’d truly believe it himself. And that’s the problem.
Politicians are supposed to tell you what you want to hear. But the best politicians are those who will tell you the truth even if it means sharing with you the hard news that everything is not going to be hunky-dory.
That’s one measure of a true leader because it’s easy to tell people what they want to hear and become popular. It’s quite another to tell them that many problems aren’t easy to solve and some solutions will cost lots of money.
Charlie has a favorite saying and you will hear it time after time. He’ll wax poetic about Florida and her natural beauty and then he’ll say: “I love Florida, I love Florida with all my heart,” as he places his hand on his heart. It’s picture-perfect, but it’s fake.
Because when Florida really needed him to guide the ship of state, he voluntarily jumped overboard and proudly pronounced that he wanted to go to Washington, D.C. Oh, he’ll excuse his action by saying that D.C. is the place to be to solve Florida’s problems, but it isn’t. It’s the place where ambitious politicians go to try to get themselves to the next level – the Presidency. Had Charlie stayed the course in Florida, he might have had every chance to go to D.C. in the future.
But his quest to become Sen. John McCain’s running mate left him with a strong taste for national politics, so much so that he left the state when its economy was dismal to promote himself for another job. That tells me everything that I need to know, and it should tell you everything that you need to know when you vote for Florida’s next governor.
Mind you, I’m now not so sure that Charlie will even be the Democratic nominee. The rumors that U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson will jump into the race if Charlie stumbles is remarkable — and Charlie will stumble.
The only question is will Charlie stay in the race after Nelson gets in? It’s not clear that Crist would bow out to avoid a primary battle. You see, Charlie has already aggravated most Republicans when he left the party.
It really doesn’t seem to matter to Charlie what he has to do to get elected. Now, you just have to believe him that what he has always really wanted to be is a liberal Democrat!
This is what’s bad about some politicians. For some of them, it’s all about themselves rather than about us.
