Miamai Hearld Endorses Charlie Crist fo Governor

If one wants a good summary of what is wrong with today's Republican Party and it's failed policies, Governor Rick Scott provides the laundry list ranging from everything to climate change denial - even as Miami sees more and more tidal flooding problems - to voter disenfranchisement and slashing education and social safety net spending.  Oh, and let's not forget opposition to Medicaid expansion which in Florida would aid some 1 million citizens.  Recognizing the toxicity of Scott's policies and brazen disregard for government transparency, the Miami Herald today endorsed former Republican, now Democrat Charlie Crist for Governor.  Here are excerpts from the editorial which could just as easily be applied to the policies favored by GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie here in Virginia:

Barely in office one month, Mr. Scott announced his first budget at a tea party rally in Eustis in February 2011. That was a clue that he failed to understand that he was governor of all the people. He has improved since then, but not much. 

He has ignored the state’s open-government tradition and transparency rules. His lawyers are suing Google in an effort to bottle up private e-mails that may have been used to conduct state business. He won’t talk about his out-of-state travels and he won’t release details of a secret hunting trip to the King Ranch in Texas indirectly paid for by U.S. Sugar. The governor has yet to realize that he is no longer the CEO of a private corporation — he is a public servant.

In his first year in office, Mr. Scott abolished the state’s growth-management agency, which speaks volumes about his devotion to environmental issues. He still won’t acknowledge the reality of global warming and the need to devise effective policies to combat it. Mr. Crist was endorsed by the Sierra Club for his own actions to protect the environment, including an effort to stop the building of new coal-fired plants.

▪ Mr. Scott is just fine with the dangerous Stand Your Ground law, and appointed a task force to examine the issue and give him the result he wanted — Nope, this law doesn’t need tweaking at all. Mr. Crist, however, realizes that it needs to be fixed before more people use it to commit homicide and walk away without punishment.

▪ Mr. Crist favors accepting $51 billion from the federal government to expand Medicaid to give some 1 million Floridians medical coverage. Mr. Scott was against it, then for it, but never lifted a finger to get the Republican-led Legislature to approve it.

▪ Mr. Scott slashed funding for K-12 public education in his first year in office by $1.3 billion. He’s restored some of those cuts, but per-pupil spending is still $200 less than under Mr. Crist in 2007.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article2958695.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article2958695.html#storylink=cpy

There are many other troubling issues in Mr. Scott’s record: He signed laws (since rejected by the courts) requiring drug testing for welfare recipients and some state employees. He rejected $2.4 billion in federal aid to build a high-speed train in Central Florida. And he signed laws designed to suppress the black vote.

Neither one of these candidates is perfect. Mr. Crist has had to defend his political migration from Republican to Democrat, his current support for same-sex marriage and his pro-choice stance against charges of political expedience. However, Mr. Scott stood firm against in-state tuition for young undocumented students before changing his mind this election year. The governor was four-square behind the Common Core curriculum, then wasn’t, claiming federal overreach — instead of the tea party’s tap on his shoulder.

Mr. Crist’s record on the issues, his record as a moderate — even as a Republican — and his undoubted devotion to the state of Florida give him a clear edge. For governor of Florida, the Miami Herald recommends CHARLIE CRIST.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article2958695.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article2958695.html#storylink=cpIn his first year in office, Mr. Scott abolished the state’s growth-management agency, which speaks volumes about his devotion to environmental issues. He still won’t acknowledge the reality of global warming and the need to devise effective policies to combat it. Mr. Crist was endorsed by the Sierra Club for his own actions to protect the environment, including an effort to stop the building of new coal-fired plants.▪ Mr. Scott is just fine with the dangerous Stand Your Ground law, and appointed a task force to examine the issue and give him the result he wanted — Nope, this law doesn’t need tweaking at all. Mr. Crist, however, realizes that it needs to be fixed before more people use it to commit homicide and walk away without punishment.
▪ Mr. Crist favors accepting $51 billion from the federal government to expand Medicaid to give some 1 million Floridians medical coverage. Mr. Scott was against it, then for it, but never lifted a finger to get the Republican-led Legislature to approve it.
▪ Mr. Scott slashed funding for K-12 public education in his first year in office by $1.3 billion. He’s restored some of those cuts, but per-pupil spending is still $200 less than under Mr. Crist in 2007.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article2958695.html#storylink=cpy

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Republicans Remain Clueless on Women's Issues

With new polls showing him trailing His Democrat challenger, Charlie Crist, Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott sought an ad that would attract women voters to his side.    What he got from the College Republicans is a clueless ad that is both insulting to women - especially the segment of the women vote that Scott desperately needs - and Exhibit No. 1 of the problem of the  GOP's gender gap in general.  Contrary to what chauvinistic GOP males believe, women do care about more than shopping.  I have two bright, intelligent daughters who are far more politically savvy than these dolts think they are.    Slate looks at the clumsy GOP effort to attract women that in reality ought to be driving them into the arms of Democrats.  Here are highlights:

Today in GOP Outreach to Women: You Broads Like Wedding Dresses, Right?  At this point, it's hard not to wonder if the people being hired to do outreach to women on behalf of Republican candidates aren't all a bunch of Democratic moles. The College Republican National Committee created this ad for Rick Scott, who is running for re-election as governor of Florida, and it appears to be written by men who learned everything they know about women from reading bridal magazines. It's modeled after TLC's popular show Say Yes to the Dress, except it's called "Say Yes to the Candidate" and the "dresses" in this case are Rick Scott and Charlie Crist. 

"The Rick Scott is perfect," says our blond and youthful heroine, Brittany, admiring herself in the mirror while wearing a wedding dress, which is a thing Republicans have heard women like to wear. Her friends ooh and aah. But mom, who is of course a harridan because she dared age past 35, has other ideas. "I like the Charlie Crist," she says, as we see Brittany—an undecided voter, by the way—in a frumpier dress. "It's expensive and a little outdated, but I know best." Ominous music.

It turns out Republicans made this ad in bulk. As Bloomberg View's Jonathan Bernstein notes, "not only does Brittney 'the undecided voter' think that 'The Rick Scott is perfect,' she feels the same way about 'The Rick Snyder,' 'The Tom Corbett' and three other dresses. The ads are identical, only the candidate names change."

Charlie Crist Slams Republicans Over Extremism

Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist recently officially left the Republican Party and, after a brief flirtation with being an independent, has now found a new home as a Democrat. I can identify with Crist's decision to exit the GOP given the GOP's growing extremism and alienation of those who increasingly over time will become the new majority in America.  True, Crist has ulterior motives and may want to run for Governor under the Democrat banner, but overall, his reasoning is sound and parallels my own reasoning for resigning from the GOP over a decade ago when it became clear to me that the GOP base no longer accepted much less honored the concept of the separation of church and state  For way of background for newer readers, I held a city committee seat on the Republican Party of Virginia Beach for 8 years and was the head of the Alanton precinct, a GOP bastion.  Politico has a piece on Crist's denunciation of the extremism and toxicity of today's GOP.  Here are highlights: 

Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said Monday he did not feel “comfortable” being in the Republican Party today, blaming the party’s leadership for driving him and other “midde-of-the-road” Republicans out of the GOP during the past few years.

”I really think it’s the leadership of the party, more than the membership,” he said on MSNBC. “But what’s happened is, on issue after issue, whether it’s immigration, education, voter suppression — what the leadership of the party has done is say on immigration, we want deportation. When it talks about education, it’s talking about not funding it anymore. When they talk about voter suppression, they deny people the right to vote in a civil manner.”

The former governor, who officially became a registered Democrat on Friday, continued: “I think it [the change] started several years ago, two or three years ago. I left the party two years ago and became an independent, and I did so because of the fact that, you know, on all of those issues, it just wasn’t comfortable for me to be there anymore.”

I would argue that the change happened 10 years ago or more, not over the last 2-3 years - at least not in Virginia.  And what started the GOP in its descent into insanity and extremism was the rise of the Christofascists who slowly took over the party the local level like a metastasizing cancer.

Former GOP Governor of Florida Endorses Obama

I'm sure the Christfascist/Tea Party base of the GOP is shrieking and spraying spittle as they get wind of the fact that a popular former GOP governor of the state of Florida has endorsed Barack Obama over the out of touch and "let them eat cake" ticket of the Republican Party.  True, Charlie Crist has his detractors and many believe he is gay notwithstanding his relatively marriage a woman, but in the final analysis he recognizes the extremism and toxicity of today's Republican party.  In a column today in the Tampa Bay Times, Crist endorsed Obama and laid out his reasoning, much of which coincides with my own views as a former GOP activist before the Christofascists high jacked the GOP.  Here are highlights:

I’ve studied, admired and gotten to know a lot of leaders in my life. Across Florida, in Washington and around the country, I've watched the failure of those who favor extreme rhetoric over sensible compromise, and I've seen how those who never lose sight of solutions sow the greatest successes. 

As America prepares to pick our president for the next four years — and as Florida prepares once again to play a decisive role — I'm confident that President Barack Obama is the right leader for our state and the nation. I applaud and share his vision of a future built by a strong and confident middle class in an economy that gives us the opportunity to reap prosperity through hard work and personal responsibility. It is a vision of the future proven right by our history.

Many have already forgotten how deep and daunting our shared crisis was in the winter of 2009, as President Obama was inaugurated. It was no ordinary challenge, and the president served as the nation's calm through a historically turbulent storm.

The president's response was swift, smart and farsighted. He kept his compass pointed due north and relentlessly focused on saving jobs, creating more and helping the many who felt trapped beneath the house of cards that had collapsed upon them.

[O]nly one candidate in this race has proven a willingness to navigate a realistic path to prosperity.
As Republicans gather in Tampa to nominate Mitt Romney, Americans can expect to hear tales of how President Obama has failed to work with their party or turn the economy around.

But an element of their party[the GOP] has pitched so far to the extreme right on issues important to women, immigrants, seniors and students that they've proven incapable of governing for the people. Look no further than the inclusion of the Akin amendment in the Republican Party platform, which bans abortion, even for rape victims.

The truth is that the party [the GOP] has failed to demonstrate the kind of leadership or seriousness voters deserve. 

President Obama has a strong record of doing what is best for America and Florida, and he built it by spending more time worrying about what his decisions would mean for the people than for his political fortunes. That's what makes him the right leader for our times, and that's why I'm proud to stand with him today. 

Appellate Court: Florida Ban on Gay Adoption Is Unconstitutional; Crist Halts Enforcement

A Florida appellate court has affirmed a lower court ruling that found bans on gay adoption to be unconstitutional. Florida Governor Charlie Crists has confirmed that in the wake of the appellate court's ruling, the state will cease enforcement of the Florida law. As readers may recall, at the lower court level, one of the prime witnesses for the state was anti-gay George "Rent Boy" Rekers. Thankfully, now the best interest of children will be in the forefront of placement decisions as opposed to cow towing to Christianist anti-gay religious based prejudice. Once again, it is the courts - where REAL objective evidence and rules concerning burdens of proof are controlling - are where LGBT equality is finding advancement. As I stated in an earlier blog post, it seems to me that all the money wasted on lobbying and HRC would be far better utilized recruiting top notch legal teams to challenge anti-gay laws whenever and wherever possible. Here are some highlights from the Miami Herald (Note: the noxious, Christianist Liberty Counsel crowd is NOT happy with the ruling):
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Florida Gov. Charlie Crist announced Wednesday afternoon he will cease enforcing the state's 33-year-old gay adoption law, which was declared unconstitutional by a Miami appeals court Wednesday morning. Crist lauded the court ruling as ``great'' and told reporters at a 2:30 news conference he would immediately stop enforcing the ban. Crist said he wanted to confer with the adoptive father at the center of the case before deciding whether to appeal. He said, however, that he believes the state Supreme Court wouldn't overturn the court rulings.
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Crist once supported the ban. But the U.S. Senate candidate reversed himself after he left the Republican Party and began courting the liberal vote. A Miami appeals court ruled Wednesday that Florida's ban on gays adopting is unconstitutional and affirmed the controversial adoption of two foster children by a gay North Miami couple.
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The unanimous 3-0 decision deals a critical blow to Florida's 33-year-old law banning adoption by gay men and lesbians, and most likely sends the case to Florida's highest court for resolution.
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The opinion was agreed upon by the three judges who reviewed the case, Gerald B. Cope Jr., Frank A. Shepherd and Vance E. Salter, who wrote a concurring opinion. The 35-page ruling was written by Cope, who also reviewed a similar case this summer involving a lesbian Broward couple.
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``Finally, a piece of 30-year-old prejudice has been struck from the law books in Florida,'' said Howard Simon, who heads the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida and represented Gill. ``This is good news for the advancement of human rights and the children in Florida's troubled foster-care system.''
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Mathew Staver, founder of Orlando-based Liberty Counsel, who has fought adoption by gay men and women for many years, said ``I would imagine the state will appeal this decision to the Florida Supreme Court, which is where it needs to go.'' . . . ``We're going to be in this for the long haul,'' Staver added.
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Personally, I would love to see a psychological studied done on Staver. In my opinion, either he's a total parasite who is riding homophobia as far as possible in order to keep shaking down the ignorant and bigoted for money or he's an utter nutcase with severe issues of his own. No one is this militant and anti-gay unless they are overcompensating for something. I have heard from former Lynchburg residents that the Liberty University crowd makes heavy use of gay.com for clandestine hook ups. Perhaps Staver is one of them.

Closeted Crist Becomes a Right-Wing Target

There definitely is an entertainment factor in watching the lunatic element within the Republican Party attack and trash the party's members who are moderates and appealing to independents and conservative Democrats - to the extent any remain in the GOP - and seek to nominate instead Kool-Aid drinkers such as themselves. The recent circus in New York's congressional race yielded the first Democrat win in the district in well over 100 years. Now the nutcase crowd is out for Charlie Crist's blood. I'm no fan of the closeted Crist, but the self destruction of the GOP by the litmus test crowd can only help Democrats overall. One need only look at how Sarah Palin drove moderate Republicans to vote for Obama a year ago. I continue to be amazed that the lunatic element of the GOP thinks that extremist candidates will somehow be more electable. Here are some highlights from the New York Times on the ongoing bloodbath in Florida:

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It was in the glow of a new day in politics last February when Mr. Crist, this state’s popular Republican governor, took the stage with President Obama and declared that Republicans and Democrats had to rise above partisanship in support of an economic stimulus. And Mr. Obama embraced him.
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Now, as a season of tea parties and fractious town hall meetings has energized the right wing, that embrace has endangered what once seemed like Mr. Crist’s surefire bid for a Senate seat and put Florida at the center of a debate about the future of the Republican Party.
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A raft of conservative groups, commentators and politicians are supporting a primary challenge to Mr. Crist by Marco Rubio, a telegenic former speaker of the Florida House christened a Reaganite’s answer to Mr. Obama by The National Review. “Florida is a hill to die on for conservatives,” said Erick Erickson, editor of the conservative blog RedState.com, which leads a daily drumbeat against Mr. Crist. “This is the clearest example we have of these two competing concepts.” Similar fights are playing out in primary races in other states.
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Conservative and moderate Republicans take very different lessons from this month’s special Congressional election in upstate New York, in which a third-party conservative challenged the moderate Republican candidate. In the end, a Democrat won the seat in the historically Republican district after the Republican dropped out under pressure from the right and then endorsed the Democrat. Republicans took it as evidence that candidates from the far right cannot win. But conservatives say their candidate would have prevailed if the establishment had been smart enough to put its money behind him, rather than a Republican they argue was a Democrat in thin disguise.
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One can only hope that the far right in the GOP drive down Crist only to see their far right candidate crash and burn. That would definitely be some divine justice.

Ralph Reed's "Christian Coalition 2.0" Hits Florida

The Advocate has a story about Ralph Reed, former leader of the Christian Coalition once based out of local nutcase Pat Robertson, CBN University complex, opening a Florida branch of his new Faith and Freedom Coalition to energize social conservatives and financing Republican state campaigns in Florida (and I'm sure make Ralph a nice buck or two along the way).

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The irony to me , of course is that Reed - who I meet several times back in my GOP days - is in my view a self-hating closet case. Each time I met him and was in close proximity to him my gaydar went off the charts (I will concede that he was cute in person back in the day). Thus, I classify him with Robert Knight and a few other bete noire figures of the Christian Right who are a wee bit too frantically hysterical about the issue of homosexuality unless they them selves have some issues about their sexual orientation. Here are some story highlights:

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Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, formalized plans last week to open an affiliate of his new Faith and Freedom Coalition in Florida, with the goal of energizing social conservatives and financing Republican state campaigns. The new coalition, which was created last weekend, plans to organize conservative voters and pour cash into high-profile races such as the Republican senate primary between Governor Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio, former speaker of the Florida house of representatives, according to the News Service of Florida .

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“Florida is the largest of a half-dozen states where the Faith and Freedom Coalition now has chapters, which some have dubbed a 2.0 version of the Christian Coalition, intended to draw younger, Internet-savvy social conservatives,” reported the News Service of Florida.

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Reed was hired by Pat Robertson two decades ago to serve as the first executive director of the Christian Coalition. He later became a lobbyist, and was connected to the Jack Abramoff scandal.

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Like a bad penny, some of the fixtures of the Christianist camp just keep reappearing - making money off the sheeple and grasping for power and influence are just too much for them to pass up. Ralph is definitely once such bad penny.

NPR Censors Review of "Outrage"

In yet another example of how the mainstream media fails to do its job of reporting ALL the facts and then allowing readers to decide for them self, NPR - which is often better than a number of other news outlets - has censored a review of the new documentary, "Outrage," to remove the names of the closeted politicians (some of whom have already been exposed elsewhere as frauds and hypocrites). It's maddening that the media is selective in how it allows heterosexual frauds to be exposed yet applies a totally different standard to closet cases who vote anti-gay even as the seek out and solicit gay sex. What is particularly amazing is that those protected by NPR have been outed previously in various publications already. Michelangelo Signorile rightly takes NPR to task. Here are some highlights:

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The opening of Outrage put much of the media into its usual "outing" conundrum simply because they've had their heads up their asses for years when it comes to reporting on the homosexuality of public figures. Some of the media finally got it, at least to a point, while others were hopelessly lost. The New York Times named the names, while the Washington Post refused and gave some ridiculous and brutally arrogant reasoning in an otherwise bizarrely laudatory review by Dan Zak:

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"Outrage" comes down hardest on another prominent politician whose name we won't print here. Why? He has denied repeatedly that he is gay, and there has been no substantiated reports in mainstream media about any homosexual relationships or transgressions.

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In other words: "Because the subject has claimed it's not true and because we in the mainstream media have refused to investigate this legitimate story -- even though all the sourcing might be out there and has been reported in that less-than-mainstream-new-media-thing-that-is-increasingly-read-by-more-people-than-our-dead-tree-news-which-is-losing-circulation-and-we-haven't-a-clue-why --- we're not going to report it now, even though this film is pretty damn good and makes a case for why we should!"

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Don't you love how our media ushers in "privacy" these days only when it's about reporting on the very serious issue of duplicity of politicians regarding homosexuality? Or will a search not reveal that The Washington Post has reported every sordid detail about Britney Spears and what will happen if she "flakes out" again, or Lindsay Lohan's "liquid diet" rumors, not to mention Madonna's adoption problems and various other public figures' divorces, fights, weddings, pregnancies, boozing, lying, private celebrations, fighting, baby births, cheating, plastic surgeries, tax issues, designer duds, lavish parties and on and on?

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By not discussing the names of those in the film, NPR is most certainly passing judgment on homosexuality, on the filmmaker and on the public figures involved -- deeming that, if they have secret gay lives, it is the most horrible thing imaginable. They are also deciding to suppress legitimate news because of that distaste and bias.

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These are the questions that need to be answered, and they are indeed the very questions this Outrage raises. Let's hope the more of the media, having come far on this issue, takes up the debate.

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As I have said before, once a closeted politician begins voting anti-gay on legislation, they need to be exposed if only to expose their hypocrisy and the fact that they obviously are not trust worthy. If they will lie about who they are, what else will they lie about?

Washington Post Looks at "Outrage"

I have already commented on the new documentary movie "Outrage" which looks at closeted politicians with anti-gay politicians. However, all too often what blogs bring to light doesn't equate to coverage in the main stream media - which has complicity in allowing closet cases like Ed Schrock (pictured at left), David Drier and according to Outrage, Charlie Crist, remain in the closet despite numerous leads to the truth of their double lives, not to mention homophobic voting records. Former local Congressman Ed Schrock had the second most conservative voting records and made statements about the unfitness of gays to serve in the military as he himself used "Mega Phone" to find partners for gay trysts. Fortunately, due to the efforts of some locals and Mike Rogers at BlogActive.com, Schrock's hypocritical double life was exposed and ultimately his seat has come to be held by a far more gay friendly Congressman. Here are some highlights from the Washington Post (which has complicity issues of its own):

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The closet, he points out, forces those who engage in homosexual acts to lead lives of elaborate deception, to betray their spouses, to seek anonymous sex. Conservative public officials who are gay, the film argues, adopt protective camouflage by opposing any legislation -- HIV/AIDS funding, benefits for unmarried partners, same-sex marriage -- that might identify them as pro-gay: It's a tactic that sets up an interior war against their essential selves.

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"The psychology of these people who would, in exchange for a political career, lead a double life, that's almost a Shakespearean character," Dick says. This dissonance is part of what attracted him to the topic. It supplies a depth to the screen proceedings beyond mere prurience. It also adds to the director's more direct message: He wants to "advance the cause of gay rights," including same-sex marriage, he says. And, "I hope that this film contributes in some ways to the lessening and perhaps eventual demise of the closet."

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Their names were bandied about among journalists, and you could easily find them in blogs or political-circuit chatter. But the mainstream media refused to out them even though "the gay press has been writing about this for many, many years," Dick says. Informed that this newspaper's policy is to identify only self-declared homosexuals, he's perplexed and perceives a double standard. . . . The allegedly gay politicians and others he names in his film (at least five by our count) "are public officials; this is reporting on hypocrisy, and there is an obligation on the press to write about it."

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Some gay-rights supporters consider Rogers's tactics odious and invasive. Dan Gurley, who was national field director for the Republican National Committee in 2004, once called the blogger "despicable." It's easy to see why: A couple of months before the election, Rogers outed Gurley on Blogactive.com and later posted the RNC official's Gay.com dating profile. Gurley never hid being gay, but to avoid further controversy, he says, the GOP kicked him to the curb when he sought a position in the second Bush administration.

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As I have said before, I totally support outing closeted politicians who embrace anti-gay legislation and make life worse for the rest of us. They can stay in the closet if the want, but once they support anti-gay legislation, they put a bull's eye on their own backs.

MSNBC questions Charlie Crist's engagement

Long rumored closet case, Florida Governor Charlie Crist's faux engagement became a topic of discussion on MSNBC the other night. Crist, whom I have discussed in numerous posts in the past - use the blog's search function to find them all - got engaged many believe so that John McSenile would be more likely to select him for the Vice President slot on the GOP ticket. While the talk of a staged engagement/marriage has been all over the gay media, it's interesting that talking heads on MSNBC brought it up as well. Here's highlights from the Washington Blade:

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A writer at Think Progress was watching MSNBC—someone has to, better him than us— as the talking heads discussed potential running mates for John Mccain, and whether there is a “glass ceiling” for unmarried politicians. Andrea Mitchell used Gov. Charlie Crist (R-FL) as an example, suggesting he'll miss out on the VP nomination because he isn't married; but then the other pundits became confused. Is he married? Or is he engaged? Chuck Todd cleared things up, however, when he suggested the engagement may be staged so Crist can have a shot at the Vice Presidency:

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SCARBOROUGH: Did he get married? I thought he was engaged. Is he engaged or did he get married?

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TODD: After Friday the engagement might be off if he's not the running mate, right?...I don't know!

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We hate to say it, but Crist's marital status probably isn't the reason he won't get the nomination. He was probably included in the list just to woo voters in Florida, a.k.a. "Largest Swing State In America." He's certainly worked hard for the job—he even endorsed Florida's Amendment 2, which would define man/woman marriage in the state constitution, just so he could seem like a good right-winger for Uncle John. Sorry, Charlie.

Florida (Closeted) Governor Crist to Marry Woman

Based on all the past rumors and statements by those who have seen Charlie Crist in gay bars, etc., this announcement looks politically motivated to me (those taking a Sun-Sentinnel poll thought likewise). I mean, the guy's been unmarried fro three decades after a less than one year marriage and now he suddenly is in love and getting married? I hope Carole Rome knows what she is getting into. But then, being Florida's first lady and with a hope of being the Vice President's wife, maybe she is getting what she wants. While Crist probably believes that getting married will end some of the gay rumors and enhance his prospects to be picked as McCain's running mate, Ms. Rome is not exactly a Christianist's dream pick: she's Jewish and is divorced and - Heaven forbid - owns a Halloween costume manufacturing company. The fact that she has two daughters will give Crist an insant family for photo ops. Crist will definitely need to make sure to distance himself from young male campaign aids. Here are some highlights from St. Petersburg Times:

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Gov. Charlie Crist, single for nearly three decades, on Thursday morning became engaged to his girlfriend of nine months, Carole Rome. . . . No date has been set for the wedding, but Crist, 51, said it would be in St. Petersburg, where he is a member of First United Methodist Church. There probably also will be a reception in Tallahassee.

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Rome is a 1991 honors graduate of Georgetown University who became president of her family's 100-year-old Halloween costume business in 2000 when her father died. She has two daughters, ages 11 and 9, with former husband Todd Rome of New York, CEO of Blue Star Jets. She moved to Fisher Island in Miami in 2006.

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And his engagement is likely to reverberate well beyond Florida because the popular governor is widely viewed as a contender to be likely Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate. Not since Franklin Pierce picked William King to be his running mate in 1852 has America had a bachelor vice president.

The Buzz About Charlie Crist

I posted the other day about the buzz about Florida Governor Charlie Crist being a possible running mate for John McCain and looked at Crist's past that more or less confirms that he's yet another closeted GOP politician. As David Fiderer at Huffington Post suggests, perhaps the buzz is merely a way to get free media coverage for the GOP in Florida while in reality, there is no way in Hell Crist could ever accept a VP nomination because then his somewhat open secret would be sooner or later discovered (not that I wouls not enjoy watching the process, especially if came out during the election campaign). Here are some highlights from Fiderer's column (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-fiderer/does-the-media-advise-and_b_90014.html):

The GOP has this rule about anyone who aspires to national elected office. Nobody talks about it much these days. But 50 years ago it inspired both a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Advise and Consent, and a Broadway play, Gore Vidal's The Best Man. The rule is simple. Any serious question about a candidate's sexual orientation is an instant disqualifier. So ignore the phony buzz from Bob Novak and Dick Morris, who once wrote, "To stop Hillary, draft Condi"." John McCain will never pick Condoleezza Rice as his running mate. Her status, as a 53-year-old never married woman, would invite reporters to start asking too many of the wrong questions.

Last April the Florida legislature changed the law to allow the current governor, Charlie Crist to run for president or vice president without resigning his job. Crist is enormously popular among Floridians, and any buzz about his joining the Republican ticket generates favorable free media in a crucial swing state. So it was inevitable that GOP operatives would plant phony stories, like the one in that showed up in Bob Novak's column and elsewhere touting Charlie Crist as McCain's possible running mate.

As if McCain's people never use the internet, where they would have stumbled onto a series of articles in New Times, of Broward-Palm Beach, Florida. They are titled, "Charlie Crist Is NOT Gay, And other things the Republican Party wants you to believe on Election Day," and "Crist Denies Trysts GOP frontrunner: I have never had sex with a man," and "Crist Denies Trysts II: Sworn testimony backs up claims that Bruce Jordan boasted of his affair with Charlie Crist." But the New York Post discredited those rumors last November, when it reported that Charlie Crist was dating Carole Rome, who was in the process getting a divorce from the owner of the Bluestar Jets. It must be serious; they've been together eight months, which is two months longer than Crist's first and only marriage, which ended in divorce in 1975 when Crist was 23.

Like John McCain, Charlie Crist is a traditional values kind of guy. During the 2006 campaign season, he told groups of voters, by way of targeted recorded phone calls, that, "I support a constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriages, and I oppose adoption by gay couples." Crist has backtracked on the constitutional amendment issue; "I'm just a live and let live kind of guy," he now says. But not his party.

Florida Republicans have secured a place on November ballot for a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Of course, Florida Republicans don't want Crist to start campaigning for the amendment, for the same reason that House Republicans didn't want David Drier counting votes for H.J. Res. 88. You think Republican regulars don't recognize what's going on?

A Possible Gay Running Mate for McCain?

I nearly burst out laughing the other morning when I heard Joe Scarborough on MSNBC talking about John McCain perhaps having Florida Governor Charlie Crist as his VP running mate. Rumors about Crist being gay have been around for some time and surprisingly were not ever really picked up by the media when he ran for governor in 2006, so perhaps Scarborough just dismissed the rumors. This article (http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2008-02-28/news/the-talk-of-the-green-iguana/0 suggests that it might be harder to do if Crist gets a VP nod. After all, if Crist were to take the VP nomination every piece of his life will be put under a microscope and reviewed with a fine tooth comb. Can you image the foaming at the mouth that will overtake the GOP basis if this information gets a wider coverage? obviously, it’d be great fun to watch. Here are some story highlights:

The rumors about Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and the Green Iguana just wouldn't go away. The story goes that the Florida governor frequented the Green Iguana, a bar in Tampa, back in the early 1990s when he was just starting his political career. He was less careful back then, people say, and during his partying at the Green Iguana, he was openly gay. When I got Rick Calderoni, the bar's well-known owner, on the phone, I expected him to stonewall me about it. He didn't. Calderoni, who is gay, confirmed that Crist came into his bar quite often and that the two of them became friends. Getting to the point, I asked him if he knew Crist to be gay. "Yes," he answered bluntly. "I just wish he would come out and admit it. That would be a great thing if he did."

I asked Calderoni if he was certain that Crist is gay. He told me that Crist socialized with a gay clique of friends but conceded that he'd never actually seen Crist become intimate with another man. So how can he be sure Crist is gay? "The way he acted," Calderoni said. How did he act?
Calderoni laughed and said, "Very feminine."

The topic may soon, however, get some national play. After helping to deliver Florida in the GOP primary, Crist is widely believed to be on the short list to become John McCain's nominee for vice president. If he were to be chosen, imagine how interesting this presidential election would be. Not only would the American people be asked to vote for the first black president or female commander in chief, but, at least in terms of subtext, also the first gay vice president.

If McCain chooses Crist, it would be interesting to see how the voracious national press (as opposed to cautious Florida newspapers) would handle the issue. Would the New York Times put a small team of reporters on the story in an effort to dig up the truth? I think so. Just last week, a writer with a major national magazine called me on the topic. He said he was doing a general piece about the recent spate of Republican outings and scandals, but the V.P. talk surely has given a bit of urgency to the project.