Well, as was expected Republican-turned-Independent-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist, everyone’s favorite sleazy opportunist, handily defeated his opponent, Nan Rich 74-26 in Florida's Democrat primary this past Tuesday. Out of the nearly 4.6 million registered Democrats here in the state of Florida, it was only 838,000 who saw this race as being important enough to show up to cast their ballots. Which, I suppose, may also be as an indication of how they truly feel about Crist.
Meanwhile over on the Republican side, the numbers there were a bit better, having more than 925,000, out of the 4.1 million registered Florida Republicans, who showed up to cast ballots for their favorite candidates. So I think we can safely see here that neither candidate is stirring much in the way of excitement within their respective parties. Or perhaps a majority of the people simply don’t see the significance of a primary election, leaving the rest of to select for them who it is that they will have to vote for come the general election.
At any rate, what we have in Charlie Crist is a pretty pathetic guy who has a rather long history of changing his position on this or that issue, especially if he thinks that doing so will provide to him some level of political benefit. And in so doing he has managed to completely reinvent his political views. With Crist, as is demonstrated by the man himself, there is no discernible substantive there, there. But that would seem to have mattered very little to most of the Democrats who turned out to vote for him this past Tuesday.
Crist has always proven himself to be very fluid when defining his position on any issue. On Obamacare, Crist said in 2010: "The Obama health-care bill was too big, too expensive, and expanded the role of government far too much. Had I been in the United States Senate at that time, I would have voted against the bill because of unacceptable provisions like the cuts to the Medicare Advantage program. Obamacare was off the charts, was wrong. It taxed too much, has mandates that are probably unconstitutional, and it’s not the way to go."
Pretty definitive sounding, right? Well, what a difference a few years will make, because here is what Crist says now about the very same Obamacare that he once saw as being too big and too expensive: "[Obamacare] is the right thing to do. Our country needed to do it. I’m glad he did it. I’m glad we have it, and it’ll continue to improve, I believe [in it]. . . .I won’t shy away from it. I think it’s the right thing to do. And I feel that in my heart." So which is it, Charlie? I think that’s a very fair question.
And these days Crist’s also seems to have what can be described as a rather warm place in his heart for voter fraud. But it wasn’t always so. Because you see, back in 2008, Charlie signed the "No Match, No Vote" law, which requires a would-be voter’s driver’s-license number or the last four digits of his Social Security number to match listings in the state database before he can cast a ballot. But today he sees thing a bit differently. Because now he finds that these sorts of efforts "make a mockery of the democracy we put on display every Election Day."
Now if Charlie can’t be consistent on such things as Obamacare and voter fraud, what are the chances that he has been consistent on something like gay marriage? Well, as it turns out absolutely none. In previous campaigns he pledged to "support a constitutional amendment that honors traditional marriage as an institution." In 2010, he said civil unions are "fine, but I support marriage between a man and a woman." However, now Crist, the Democrat, seems to a big supporter of same-sex marriage. Imagine that!
And it was in 2010 that Charlie vetoed a bill that would have required most women to pay for an ultrasound before seeking an abortion. But in 2006, he had pledged to sign a bill that only permitted abortions to save the life of the mother. And it was also in 2010 that Crist sought a special session of the state legislature to permanently ban oil drilling in state waters. But back in 2008 he had called for ending the federal ban on offshore drilling. So forgive me if I seem more than a bit confused here.
So the question is, or at least it should be, who is the real Charlie Crist? That’s really a pretty easy one. Charlie is a cynical, dishonest opportunist, a man with no principles and no core values who will say absolutely anything to advance his political career. And while the political practices of nearly all politicians can be said to be pretty far removed from anything that can be called ‘saintly’, they are a world apart from Crist’s. As Crist has said on any number occasions, it wasn’t he who changed, it was the Republican Party that changed.
But as Democrats made perfectly clear earlier this week on Election Day, they have absolutely no trouble with nominating someone like this transparent phony for public office. After all, it’s what Democrats do, why should they treat Charlie any differently? And in looking back at 2010 it’s pretty clear that the Republicans had a very different opinion of this guy. Hence the need for him to make the change to the Democrat Party. Crist has always been a pretty much down-the-line liberal attempting to pass himself off as something of a born-again conservative.
So when it comes down to most Democrats, I think we can all agree here that voting for someone the likes of Charlie Crist has never proven to be very much of a problem. Actually I think Democrats tend to prefer guys like him. For one reason, those who make up the core constituencies of their party are those who see no real need to work, so therefore they tend to vote for those politicians who are least likely to require that they do so. So it’s going to be left up to rest of us to make sure that this scumbag is not able to worm his way back into office.
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