Former Gov. Charlie Crist has a great resume, a moderate-to-liberal heart and he's just made a public and decisive rejection of the Republican Party. Does that mean he's automatically the next Democratic candidate for governor?
As former Miami Herald political writer Beth Reinhard writes in the National Journal, not necessarily...particularly, if the rank-and-file thinks the party is stuffing Crist down their throats:
Former Governor and brand-new Democrat Charlie Crist explained his qualms and misgivings with the Republican Party last night in an interview with Chris Matthews on MSNBC's "Hardball" program.
Crist said his disenchantment grew as he assessed the Republican leadership views of immigration, education and voter suppression.
"As a live-and-let-live kind of guy who wants to be tolerant, who wants to be kind, who wants to be compassionate," Crist explained, "the leadership doesn't seem to embrace that kind of view."
Republicans are upset that the president wants the debt ceiling included in budget talks. Meanwhile, former Republican Governor Charlie Crist switches parties.
The whole idea behind the voting law state legislators passed in 2011 was to discourage Democratic voters.
That's the bottom line in a Palm Beach Post story by Dara Kam and John Lantigua. Although the law was presented as an urgently needed defense against voter fraud, sources including former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist and former state GOP Chairman Jim Greer and some Republican campaign consultants tell the Post a very different story:
Former Gov. Charlie Crist is taking fire from the Republican press release machine now that speculation is growing that he'll challenge Gov. Rick Scott as a Democrat in 2014.
The AP and Sarasota Herald-Tribune suggest there's an angry personal element to this that transcends ordinary politics, probably because Crist was once a Republican governor and the darling of his party. But now he's a cheating rat.
Former Gov. Charlie Crist is standing with state Democrats in favor of a bill to fix election problems that embarrassed the state last week.
State Rep. Darryl Rouson of St. Petersburg is the House sponsor of the bill, which would restore early voting to 14 days and allow non-government buildings to be used as early voting site.
Crist's name continues to surface as a possible Democratic challenger to Gov. Rick Scott in 2016. He has left the Republican Party and remains an independent who likes to call himself "Citizen Crist."
Dismayed after black citizens, voting early, handed Florida to President Obama in 2008, state Republican leaders showed up in Gov. Charlie Crist's office to demand a law that restricts early voting.
