The Republican governor of Florida is in favor of the stimulus bill. He even went on Meet the Press to say so.
He was actually nice to President Obama in Florida. He stood on stage with him.
He says: "I want my president to succeed."
To which some outraged Republicans are saying, what's wrong with this man?
They sputter. They snarl. They call him a sellout. Even Jeb Bush's son went after Crist the other day.
They question whether his Political Career is Over.
Good grief! I don't think so.
In the first place, it is not at all clear that a bunch of guys who just spent eight years running the country into the ground, whose answer to every problem is "cut taxes for rich guys," and who just got their butts whipped by a guy named "Hussein" are exactly political experts.
Second, the claim that Crist is not "conservative enough" or "Republican enough" ignores history.
He made his reputation in the Legislature by demanding chain gangs for prison inmates, and that they serve 85 percent of their sentences.
He served a dutiful stint in the culture wars, getting into a fight over the play Corpus Christi at a Florida university.
As a Republican committee chairman in 1995, he took on a Democratic icon, then-Gov. Lawton Chiles, digging into a Chiles campaign scandal. After a year of being mocked by smug Democrats, he was proved right.
(By the way, what Crist exposed were Democratic dirty tricks against the Republican loser to Chiles in 1994, a guy named Jeb Bush.)
Crist took on another Democratic idol, U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, in 1998. He didn't have a chance but did it anyway.
Mostly, Crist is a practical populist. His idols are Ronald Reagan and his mentor, former U.S. Sen. Connie Mack. He is antitax and antigovernment — except when he perceives that the tide is running in favor of government action.
And so Chain-Gang Charlie grew up to become Consumer Protection Charlie and Global Warming Charlie, and now he's Stimulus Charlie and Bipartisan Charlie, too. Oh, and he's also Take-the-Indian-Gambling-Revenue Charlie.
Is he ruined as a presidential candidate? I dunno. You do have to appease a lot of nutbags in either party to win a nomination. On the other hand, he's defied all his critics so far. "Bipartisan" is a dirty word mostly to partisans.
U.S. senator? Absolutely his, if he wants it. The Senate was Crist's first love, after all, in his tutelage under Mack, and then his willingness to take on Bob Graham as a long shot. The Senate fits his nature.
Still, why wouldn't he be re-elected as governor? Who's going to beat him? Alex Sink, the Democratic state CFO? She's got star potential, but let's not kid ourselves. Or maybe there's a "true conservative" Republican out there who is going to teach Crist a thing or two in a primary? Sure. Right.
For 18 years, critics have said that Crist is a lightweight and a sloganeer. The only difference now is that the right wing of his own party is grumbling, too.
Let 'em go stand in line with the Democrats. His current approval rating in one poll is 73 percent. He is Elvis.
So, he's making nice with the president and trying to get some dough for Florida, and some people don't like it? If I'm Crist, I am thinking to myself: boo flippin' hoo. In a nice way, of course.
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