Three days after Charlie Crist shook up the political world by declaring his independent candidacy for governor, the Florida Senate race was featured on three of the big five Sunday political affairs programs.
But in keeping with how the race has been covered for the most part so far, both locally and nationally, the Republican and now independent candidate in the race, Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist, made appearances, while Democrat Kendrick Meek was relegated to getting a few minutes on BayNews 9's Political Connections.
Crist appeared on NBC's Meet The Press (which by the way, had somewhat of a shaky production, which perhaps could be attributed to their much ballyhooed new set) where he said that he supports the idea of repealing the federal health care bill passed by Congress in March. That shouldn't be a surprise, per se, coming from "the people's governor."(A Mason/Dixon poll released in March showed Floridians support repeal by a 54%-34% margin).
Perhaps the weakest response that Crist gave was when Gregory asked who he would caucus with – the D's or the R's, if elected in November. Crist used the all encompassing phrase that it will be "the people" who'll he'll caucus with, which in the Senate, means either Republican people or Democratic people!
GOV. CRIST: I'll caucus with the people of Florida. And, and, and as I said earlier this week, I'll caucus with anybody who will help my fellow Floridians.
MR. GREGORY: But hold on, Governor. You have to make a choice when you're in the Senate, Republicans or Democrats. Who do you caucus with? As a matter of business, you'd have to decide.
GOV. CRIST: Well, when I'm an independent, I'm going to do what I think is in the best interest of my people, and that's my decision. And that's what I'm going to do for Floridians. And that's what people want. They don't want you to say, look, you have to either go with Democrats or Republicans. You have to go with your gut and with your heart. That's what this country needs now more than ever, and that's why I'm running independent.
MR. GREGORY: Would you, would you vote for a Republican or a Democratic majority leader?
GOV. CRIST: I might not vote for either one. You know, I'm going to vote for who I think would be best for the people of Florida. And if that happens to be a Democrat, so be it. If it happens to be a Republican, so be it. But I got to look out for the people of my state. I mean, we've got candidates now in this race, one that's on the hard right in Speaker Rubio, one that's on the hard left in Congressman Meek; you know, sort of the big government guy and the big corporate guy. And then you've got a commonsense guy right down the middle that wants to represent the people of the state and do what's right. It's not right vs. left, this is about right vs. wrong.
This article appears in Apr 28 – May 4, 2010.
