Greer makes Charlie Crist squirm
By Chris Ingram
Much to Charlie Crist’s chagrin, Jim Greer reared his ugly head again this week with revelations (surprise!) that secret deals covering up the secret deals existed within the Republican Party of Florida.
This is bad news for Governor U.V. Rays as he just began his attacks on Marco “Amexo” Rubio in an attempt to reverse the slide the Tan Man has suffered in the polls the last few months. It’s kind of hard to legitimately paint Rubio as ethically challenged when your own self-selected stooge is now the subject of a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation.
For the record, Charlie’s support helped move Greer from whatever used car lot or bowling alley he had been employed at to RPOF Chair, but the fact is, Chuckles did not appoint him to the position – the knuckleheads who make up the state committee of the RPOF did that (not once, but twice). This same bunch of dimwits then turned around and elected John Thrasher to sweep the mess under the rug – a task he has done splendidly.
The Greer/PROF/contracts/Amex matter gets even better in as much as it now consumes virtually every “leader” within the Republican Party – a term I use looser than a rope of sand. Thrasher the new party chairman, Crist and Rubio the U.S. Senate candidates, Senate President-designate Mike Haridopolos, Speaker-designate Dean Cannon, and even Bill “Howdy Doody” McCollum are now more involved in this matter than any of them would like to be.
And the list doesn’t stop there. Every other legislative “leader” in the state is also involved at least for as much as they have been absent in publicly calling for doing what’s right. But that’s the politically expedient way of doing things – avoid doing anything that shows you have a spine and hope someone else makes the mess go away. Is it any wonder our country is in the toilet with people like these representing us?
Seriously, when the voters of this state (and the American people across the country for that matter) stop accepting mediocrity in their elected officials, stop expecting them to be corrupt, no longer stand for making a choice between the lesser of two-evils in elections, and start demanding politicians to show real leadership by giving people what they need not what they want, our country will stop circling the drain of the toilet that is the current American political system.
The choice is ours. We can make something happen by voting all these clowns out of office and start looking for fresh voices, people of integrity, and demanding honesty from those who represent us. It will never happen otherwise. The politicians certainly aren’t going to wake up tomorrow and start doing the right thing. If they were to do so, they’d all have to resign…
What I can’t understand is how woeful the Democrats in Florida are proving to be. Here are the Republicans with an empty-suited governor running against a choir boy candidate who doesn’t know right from wrong for the U.S. Senate, and Howdy Doody Bill McCollum as the likely gubernatorial nominee (and who is the most uninspiring candidate since California’s Gray Davis) and all the Democrats can come up with is Kendrick Meek and Alex Sink to challenge them? If the Republicans win anything next year in Florida it won’t be because they fielded great candidates but rather the Democrats proved theirs to be even worse — as if that were possible.
On a sort-of related matter, I am pleased to report that despite my concerns over Marco Rubio’s inability to discern right from wrong as it relates to his RPOF American Express card, he did what I asked him and returned my campaign contribution earlier this week. The only other campaign contribution I’ve ever asked to be returned was the $250 I gave U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) for his General Election run-off in 2008. I never got it back. The irony of it all is I asked for my contribution to Saxby Chambliss to be returned only after he endorsed Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio in the Florida U.S. Senate race.
Rubio called me last week after my “un-endorsement” and he explained his one word response (“OK”) to my un-endorsement e-mail. I then told Marco I wish him well and that if the election were held tomorrow I’d pinch my nose and still vote for him, but that given his lack of good judgment on the Amex and related spending issues, I could no longer wholeheartedly support him.
I’m still looking for a better candidate, though not likely to find one this late in the game. I still have the option of writing in Mickey Mouse, who at this point seems a lot more qualified — and would certainly do far less damage than anyone else.
Chris Ingram is the president and founder of 411 Communications a corporate and political communications firm, and publisher of www.IrreverentView.com. Ingram is a frequent pundit on Fox News and CNN, and has written opinion columns for the Washington Times, UPI, Front Page Florida, and National Review online. E-mail him at: Chris@IrreverentView.com.
This article appears in Mar 31 – Apr 6, 2010.