Charlie Crist became a Democrat Friday night, making it official at the White House Christmas Party.
The only surprising part of this development is that it occurred in December. The former Florida Republican governor told reporters in Tampa a few weeks ago that he was going to lay low through the holidays and announce his future plans regarding politics in the New Year. But of course his announcement last night is only half of what he's expected to do, with the second phase being his announcement that he will enter the race to be the Democratic nominee for governor in 2014 against Rick Scott.
Crist told the Tampa Bay Times' Adam Smith Friday night what he has told campaign audiences in Florida over the past couple of months while stumping for President Obama: That he didn't leave the GOP, the GOP left him (a variation on Ronald Reagan's statement from 50 years ago on why he left the Democratic fold).
The Republican Party of Florida has been generating critical press releases against Crist for months now, obviously intimidated that his potential entrance into the governor's race could make things difficult in their quest to control Tallahassee until basically the end of time.
In a statement entitled "Charlie vs. Charlie," the RPOF said:
Charlie Crist's first official act as a Democrat was to tell a lie about why he is now pretending to be one. The truth is that this self-professed, Ronald-Reagan Republican only abandoned his pro-life, pro-gun, conservative principles in 2010 after he realized that Republicans didn't want to send him to Washington D.C. as a senator, especially after he proved he couldn't do the job as governor.
It's obvious that Florida Democrats are desperate when Charlie Crist is the one who gets invited to the White House just two years after he disowned Barack Obama in 2010, publicly ripped him at every turn, accusing President Obama of having 'the same tired answer for every problem, trashing ObamaCare and promising to repeal it, endorsing John McCain, and blasted President Obama for wasting money on the stimulus.
