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It's not just right-of-right-of-right-of-center conservatives anymore. It's the Florida media, which seems to have had enough of the governor's impregnable political armor.
Yesterday, Gov. Charlie Crist took the stage in Broward County, a Democratic stronghold, and issued a strong statement of support for Barack Obama, as well as an on-stage execution of a proposed pipeline.
But South Florida's papers aren't exactly conservative this morning, and aren't exactly liberal. They're exactly grumpy, like cynicism fits them in a middle-bear kind of way.
Broward's New Times betrays the ambivalence in its title piece "Teflon Charlie Rules Lauderdale Stage".
Teflon = negative
Rules Stage = positive
Blogger = confused
Now from the actual piece:
In opening remarks before this afternoon's town hall meeting at the Galt Ocean Mile condominium on Fort Lauderdale Beach, Crist took a defensive posture two weeks after he appeared with Obama at a town hall meeting in Fort Myers.
A "defensive posture" in Broward?
Clearly, Crist is burnishing his moderate credentials in a state that's gone blue in advance of his next election, be that for governor or, more likely, U.S. Senate.
Yes, Charlie Crist is Mark Sanford 363 days of the year except when he takes the stage with Obama and visits Broward County. Then he gives the hard-sell that he's a moderate.
Or take the Miami Herald. Try this on for jaded size.
If President Barack Obama had seen Charlie's performance at Galt Ocean Mile, he would have known in his gut that this was his man -- like that long-ago movie director who saw Lana Turner sitting at a soda fountain in Schwab's Drugstore and recognized his future star.
Obama would have rushed on stage and declared Charlie Crist ``my [third] choice as secretary of commerce.''
.... When Crist took the microphone, he discarded Republican Party ideology like an old coat. He embraced Obama's stimulus package, loving Florida's $12.2 billion jolt of federal money the way a momma loves her baby.... Crist remains the ever-happy warrior even in unhappy times. Hearing him talk up Florida's prospects Wednesday, you could almost forget that we're up to our ears in foreclosures.
And finally, a return to the great Commerce float:
Obama needs Crist. And Crist needs another job. Fast. Otherwise, he faces the same brutal fate as the once sunny Arnold Schwarzenegger.... Crist could be living it up in Washington, jetting around the world with his new bride, bedding down in luxury hotels in great cities, talking up the American prospect.
Hey, Herald. Annie's sun came up tomorrow, didn't it?
