You may recall how in 2010, former Florida Governor Charlie Crist was the choice of the Republican Establishment as the party’s candidate for Senator. He lost the party’s nomination to an upstart conservative named Marco Rubio. No doubt if Crist had defeated Rubio, conservatives would have been told to shut up and support him because nothing was more important than loyalty to the party. Since Crist didn’t defeat Rubio, he ran against him as an Independent, and after losing, switched over to the Democrats.
Funny how that party loyalty thing only works one-way.
Anyway, Crist is running for Florida governor again, now as a loyal Obama Democrat. That’s not so weird, but he does have this peculiar thing about always needing to have a fan blowing on him when he makes a public appearance, which resulted in some “Only in Florida” weirdness at his gubernatorial “debate” with current Republican governor Rick Scott.
Charlie Crist, burdened with an almost pathological disdain for humanity’s untidiness, hates to sweat. This trait runs deep, and it was laid bare again last night in an utterly bizarre and totally hilarious bit of political theater that would only happen in Florida. Crist, who claimed to have something called “temperature issues” that can only be “addressed” with a fan, had installed a fan at his feet before the debate.
This was not to Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s liking for reasons that have not yet been fully explained. Scott refused to debate under any condition that would be fanned, giving life to what is now known as #fangate.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have an extremely peculiar situation right now,” the moderator said. ” … We have been told that Gov. Scott will not be participating in this debate. Gov. Crist has asked to have a fan — a small fan — placed underneath his podium. The rules that I was given by the Scott campaign says there should be no fan.” He paused. “Somehow, there is a fan there.”
Eventually, Rick Scott showed up and the debate went on but… pretty weird, right? Though not quite as weird as former Florida Senator Bob Graham who reportedly kept detailed journals recording the time, length, and consistency of his bowel movements.
Yeah, what Rick Scott should have done was to show up and, with his opening statement said, “With the unpopularity of politicians these days, it’s nice to see that my opponent manage to bring one fan to this debate.”
Didn’t Clinton like to have a fan under the desk blowing on him as well?
Hypocrisy Alert !!!!
The DemonizingRats hated Charlie Christ when he was the Republican governor of Florida 2007-2011. Now the DemonizingRats have him running as their champion.
The Atlantic back in March posed this:
He is a typical professional politician with delusions of grandeur and the DemoningRats are welcome to him.
Good grief!
Shades of Dick Nixon’s disastrous TV-debate with Glam’Jack K. in 1960. Radio listeners thought Nixon won the debate. But TV viewers were turned-off by Nixon’s apparent five-o’clock-shadow and profuse sweating due to the harsh TV-lights. By comparison JFK looked cool and collected under his professionally-applied TV Presenter’s make-up.
Rumor is that Bush-43 wore a water-cooled vest for some of his debates to maintain a comfortable and poised presentation to the audience and cameras.
Charlie Crist has changed his stand on EVERY SINGLE position. He is always about Charlie and now we know it. I didn’t care for him very much when he was governor as a Republican but couldn’t figure out why. Then he went from R to I to D and I realized why…the man has no core. There is no single politician I despise more, even Obama.
The fact that these two schmucks are the best that Florida has to offer really says a lot about the political system of Florida.
Speaking from South Florida…
Further discussion has turned this whole early version on its ear. Crist and Scott had agreed to not having any electronic devices or fans or anything out on the stage–even signing something in agreeing to this. Then one of Crist’s people shoved that fan under the podium anyway, and the moderators were unsure of what to do next since the rules were being broken and the debate was about to go live. Scott’s people didn’t handle him well. Crist went out onstage while the mods were “sorting,” and Scott was kept backstage by his people, leading to one of the mods (most likely a Crist supporter) pronouncing that Scott was “refusing to come out”.
I joked to a friend later on that if Scott were better able to joke about such things, he should have entered with a huge, industrial fan on wheels and quipped, “Anything you can do, I can do better.”
I don’t have a link or anything but this is what has been reported on the local news. Even the libs who anchor my local news are saying (through gritted teeth) that the “story” ought to be Crist agreeing to something, then flagrantly going back on his promise WRT the fan, while the scorn heaped on Scott *may* be misplaced. But of course no one in the Dem camp is going to correct themselves willingly, so even if the truth of the situation is clarified, a lot of people will continue to believe the version that best fits their opinion of Scott, not Crist.
Crist ought to avoid discussion of fans anyway, since he is the very definition of one: something that oscillates back and forth, distributing hot air but not really doing anything to solve the overlying heat issues.
LOL! Awesome comments! I’m a fan of you all!