Charlie Woody and You

I suppose I should have things to say about the full-scale GOP war on Charlie Crist, the mass endorsements by the crazy Cheney and cynical Romney and just plain schmucky Cantor wings of the party of Tea Party Republican Marco Rubio, and Crist's apparent impending declaration that he will run for Senate as an independent.

I suppose I should. I certainly have no love for Marco Rubio.

And Crist supposedly represents the so-called moderate wing of the party. Shouldn't we want to see someone like Crist pull the GOP back from the extremes it finds itself at these days?

So...why don't I have any sympathy for him?

I don't dislike Charlie Crist, per se. Early in his term as governor, my Democratic friends and I saw him, only slightly in jest, as the best Democratic governor since Bob Graham. But, he has always stricken me as a cynical opportunist, looking for whatever move will advance Charlie Crist, while occasionally forced by an underlying conscience to do the right thing. He's the type of Republican everyone wanted to believe that Rudy Giuliani and John McCain were, until both revealed themselves as dangerous, crazy hypocrites in the last election. Given Charlie's flirtation with Giuliani's presidential campaign (Crist's abandonment of which - and pure right wing cynicism of Giuliani's own - caused the mobster-mentality Giuliani to get his revenge by endorsing Marco Rubio's Senate campaign, further giving the lie to Rudy's so-called moderate label) and his ultimate support of John McCain - again cynically calculated to hopefully lead to a vice presidential nod - it's hard to see Charlie Crist any differently.