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"The numbers tell the story: Florida's unemployment tripled..."

TheBlaze Blog got around to reading some of Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist‘s memoir, co-written by his lookalike Ellis Henican, and it can mostly be summed up as 340 pages of why Crist renounced the Republican Party and should now be elected as the next Democratic governor of the Sunshine State. The book recounts the cute moment Crist told Obama adviser Valerie Jarett he was going to register as a Democrat (he was formerly a Republican-turned independent) during a White House tour. And the first line of the final chapter begins, “I am convinced of it: The Democratic Party is...

In early 2009, President Obama arrived in Florida to tout his stimulus plan. But it was a hug that stole the show.Then-Republican Gov. Charlie Crist's embrace of the president became a kiss of death for his Senate bid. Nearly five years later, Crist is hugging Obama again — in a different way. Now a Democrat running for his old job, Crist has assembled a campaign roster chock full of former Obama hands. His apparent wager: 1) Some of Obama's success in the the perennial swing state (he won it twice) can be replicated this fall and 2) Advertising a team...

Charlie Crist could be playing for high stakes beyond Tallahassee come 2014 as he could end up on Hillary Clinton’s short list in 2016. Back when he was a Republican, Crist looked to play at the national level. Long before he was governor, Crist was running for the U.S. Senate against Bob Graham. Instead of running for a second term as governor, which would have been a slam dunk, Crist once again looked to move to the Senate. Back in 2008, after helping deliver the Florida primary to John McCain, Crist looked to join the Republican ticket as his running...

Potential/likely Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist is taking some heat for having backed a Florida gay marriage ban during his 2006 Republican primary for governor. Tonight he posted the following on Facebook: Some great news: On Tuesday, Delaware became the 11th state to allow marriage equality. And just a few days ago, Rhode Island adopted a similar measure, which followed victories last fall in Maine, Maryland and Washington. I most certainly support marriage equality in Florida and look forward to the day it happens here. Seems to us he still has some explaining to do about his position. Was it...

Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist endorsed President Barack Obama in an op-ed in The Tampa Bay Times on Sunday. Touting the president for serving as the “nation’s calm,” Crist, now a registered independent, decried the GOP’s shift to the “extreme right.” POLITICO noted that while the move isn’t a shock, the interesting aspect is related to “ongoing rumors about Crist running for governor again, only as a Democrat.” While he doesn’t make any mention of a run in the op-ed, ” if Obama wins Florida, this would be a handy thing for Crist, whose original consulting team is with Romney,...

SARASOTA, Fla. — Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich assailed his chief rival for the party’s nomination on Tuesday by using a local insult, calling Mitt Romney the “Charlie Crist” of the GOP field. His reference to the former Florida governor, who lost his Senate race in 2010, embodies Gingrich’s strategy as he tries to ride a wave of momentum heading into the primary here next week: to channel the energy and power of the tea party movement that sank Crist and elected outsider superstar Marco Rubio. Gingrich has attached himself to the tea party movement ever more tightly in recent...

Newt Gingrich's decision today to bash Mitt Romney for hiring former Charlie Crist loyalists and employees doesn't seem to be sitting well with Sen. Marco Rubio, who drove Crist out of the Republican Party before beating him at the polls in 2010. Said Rubio: "Mitt Romney is no Charlie Crist. Romney is a conservative. and he was one of the first national Republican leaders to endorse me. He came to Florida, campaigned hard for me, and made a real difference in my race."

Popular former Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is predicting that the makeup of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s inner circle of advisers, which includes several strategists who ran former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s ill-fated Senate campaign against conservative standard-bearer Marco Rubio, will hurt Romney’s image with Florida voters. In an exclusive Newsmax interview Monday evening, McCollum said Sunshine State voters “will not be favorably inclined to that, because most Republican primary voters in Florida know that Charlie Crist flopped on them. He went over to the Democrats’ side … it just wasn’t the same Charlie Crist they thought they’d elected.”...

As Mitt Romney puts the South Carolina primary in his rear-view mirror and hits the accelerator in a bid to win Florida, he may discover himself crashing headlong into the bitter legacy of Charlie Crist, the former Florida governor who defected from the GOP and was soundly defeated for the U.S. Senate by Marco Rubio. Romney’s “Charlie Crist” problem is this: Romney’s chief campaign strategist and several of his most senior campaign staff were Crist’s top political advisers — the same ones who crafted Crist’s moderate, ignore-the-tea-party strategy epitomized in Crist’s famous “hug” of President Barack Obama. That strategy led...

2011 is just a few days old and the 2012 election rumor mill has already kicked into high gear. Beyond the usual speculation surrounding Sarah Palin, Beltway gossips have been talking up Jon Huntsman, President Obama's ambassador to China, as his strongest potential GOP rival next year. But the Obama ticket itself isn't immune from the scuttlebutt: A Florida blogger is predicting Obama will ditch his current vice president, Joe Biden, for outgoing Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican-turned-independent. Is this worth taking seriously? Short answer — No: The notion that a president will switch his vice president midstream is...

Seniors should be older before the receive Social Security and wealthy Americans should receive less benefits across the board, says Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. He made the argument in an interview on Sunday's Meet the Press, but it's a position Graham has advocated for on the stump in South Carolina, including a 2009 stop at The Citadel with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. "What I'm going to do is challenge this country to make some hard decisions," Graham said at the time, telling the crowd of cadets, Tea Partiers, and Graham supporters that they shouldn't give Congress a pass on the...

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is lumping President Barack Obama and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist together while criticizing their positions on abortion. Palin said that Obama is the most pro-abortion president ever and that his health care plan will expand access to the procedure. She also mocked Crist, who recently left the Republican Party, for still claiming to be pro-life after he vetoed a bill that would have required women to get ultrasounds before having an abortion.

Former Bay State Gov. Mitt Romney, who’s campaigned hard for Republicans across the country as he eyes a presidential run in 2012, earned high praise but couldn’t secure a solid endorsement from some GOP governors yesterday. “I think he’s going to be one of several people that are going to be seriously considered for the nomination,” said Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who was recently elected after Romney helped his campaign. “He’s an incredibly talented spokesman for the conservative cause.” Florida Gov. Charlie Crist declined to comment on Romney’s 2012 chances yesterday, saying he’s too busy running his own state. Crist...

What the hell is Charlie Crist doing? This is insane. Two huge problems. One, Independents don't win elections to the US Senate in three-way contests. Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman are in office because one party or the other implicitly backed them. By my count, the last candidate to win election to the Senate as an Independent (other than Sanders and Lieberman) was Harry Byrd of Virginia. He won in 1976 because the Republicans did not run a candidate. This is not coincidental; true third party candidacies almost never work: -When it comes to Congress, there's no such thing as...

Who knew? Who knew that a Kodak moment in Fort Myers more than a year ago would help shape news headlines today? When Republican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist took the stage with Democrat President Barack Obama, a political fuse was lit. The photos of Crist embracing Obama, and his federal stimulus package, were portrayed by chief GOP foe Florida Rep. Marco Rubio as proof of Crist giving comfort to the enemy, and Crist’s political world would be rocked. When Crist bolted the Republican field Thursday to run for the U.S. Senate as an independent, he did so with disdain for...

The withdrawal of Charlie Crist, Florida's moderate governor, from the Republican primary has left the way clear for conservative favourite Marco Rubio to claim the party's nomination. Hailed as the first member of the Tea Party to have the potential to break into the Senate, Rubio has risen from political obscurity a year ago to poster boy for the Right-wing populist movement that has spread across the country in reaction to President Barack Obama's liberal agenda. A lawyer and former speaker of the house in Florida's legislature, he has vowed to pursue low-tax, small government policies in Washington and has...