Sen. John McCain thanks Florida Gov. Charlie Crist after he endorsed McCain for president at the Pinnelas County Lincoln Day Dinner in St. Petersburg, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 26, 2008. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
by Jill Zuckman ad Mark Silva
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – In a surprise announcement with major implications for the Republican primary, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist threw his weight behind Sen. John McCain for president at the Pinellas County Lincoln Day Dinner here calling him "a true American hero."
"I think the world of him," Crist said of McCain.
"We have to think about, when it comes to Tuesday, who you're going to vote for and who you're going to support," he said, adding that he had thought long and hard about his decision. "I don’t think anybody would do better than the man who stands next to me."
McCain and Crist embraced at the podium as the audience stood and applauded before McCain gave a spirited thanks.
Crist is a popular Republican and a plum get in the race for endorsements. All the candidates had worked long and hard to woo him. But McCain had campaigned for Crist over the years and the two had become friends, one campaign adviser said.
McCain, who already had the state's three Cuban-American congressmen, also picked up the backing of Sen. Mel Martinez, a Cuban-born lawyer from Orlando, this week.
The McCain campaign had no idea earlier today that Crist was going to make an endorsement. They had previously arranged for Crist to introduce McCain at the dinner. But Crist arrived early at the hotel and told McCain this evening that he planned to publicly offer his support.
Crist, a former state legislator and attorney general who rose to prominence with his own hard-line stances -- he was known as "Chain Gang Charlie'' during his days as a state senator for his insistence that prison inmates in Florida work while behind bars -- does not bring any personal political machinery to the McCain campaign. But he brings a popular name.
It is Crist who appears in person on television ads filling the TV screens of Floridians on the eve of Tuesday's presidential primary with his pitch for a constitutional amendment, "Amendment One, limiting property taxes. And it is Crist who built a name here as a pro-consumer attorney general suing corporations that could lend to McCain's image as the maverick to support.
The former governor of Florida, Republican Jeb Bush, has refrained from endorsing any Republican in this race. But he has lent some of his best political operatives to the campaign of Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, whom polls portray as running a close race with McCain for the support of Republicans in a primary critical to the GOP's candidates.
Crist also is largely responsible for advancing Florida's presidential primary to Jan. 29, making the fourth-largest state a player in the presidential nominations this year.
Crist is a Pennsylvania native, though his family settled in St. Petersburg.
He started his political careeer at Florida State University, and earned a law degree from the Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama. He had served as state director for former U.S. Connie Mack of Florida, grandson of a baseball great, who won on a campaign of "more frreedom, less government.''
In 1992, Crist was elected to the Florida Senate, where he served as chairman of the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee and gave former Gov. Lawton Chiles, a Democrat, a hard time for the campaign tactics which Chiles employed in defeating Jeb Bush in his first bid for the governor's office, in 1994. Crist dragged Chiles and staff through a series of hearings.
Bush appointed Crist as Deputy Secretary of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. And in 2000, Crist won election as commissioner of Education. He moved quckly to attorney general, with election in 2002, becoming the state's first Republican attorney general. And in 2006, he became governor, the fourth Republican in modern times.
The governor said he had just decided today to endorse McCain and that he planned to campaign for him. He said he got no commitment from McCain on the question of a national catastrophic insurance fund for hurricanes and other storms -- which Rudy Giuliani has made a centerpiece of his Florida campaign in the final days -- but McCain said at a press availability tonight that "we've got to provide loan insurance for everyone living in the path of a hurricane and we've got to save the Everglades."
Crist, calling McCain "the man for the job," said: "I believe he will win on Tuesday."
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Comments
I'm glad to see that Crist has come out of the closet for McCain.
Posted by: bill r. | January 26, 2008 8:00 PM
Jeb, your supporting Mitt privately, why not make it OFFICIAL NOW!!
Posted by: jason willis | January 26, 2008 8:03 PM
McCain will eat the Republican Party from the inside out.
Governor Crist is betraying his State with this endorsement, which desperately needs Romney's help with its economy.
Fortunately, this endorsement, one of many today for both sides, is unlikely to reverse the tides of the race. Mitt still leads Florida, and has made great inroads in the last week. I look forward to Tuesday's election!
Posted by: Jed Merrill, ConservativeRepublicans.com | January 26, 2008 8:17 PM
This mashup explores the similarities between Sleepy McSurge McCain's answer to an economics question at the Florida Republican Debate and Miss Teen South Carolina
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcdLO3jKkPo
Posted by: MC Rove | January 26, 2008 8:24 PM
Sounds like another McCain bribe to me. Despite the McCain rants, the Republican base does not like the man based on his record in Congress not based on this POW status 30-40 years ago. The media loves the guy because he is NOT a conservative. All of the Republican that I know, will never vote for him no matter who the opponent is. We are tired of holding our nose and voting for the less of all evils. Let's hope Romney gets the votes of Republican voters despite the endorsement of McCain by his friends (Crist, Graham and Martinez).
Posted by: Marge | January 26, 2008 8:45 PM
It is time for the Republican voters in the Sunshine State to help their party select the most electable Republican candidate for President of the United States in the General election. Because of our present difficulties, both domestic and abroad that we and our country face, it is imperative that our party retain the White House in the General Election. With out a Republican President, the values that our great party holds in high esteem, will be imperiled by the unchecked power of a Democrat majority in the House and Senate. There are more voters registered as Democrats than Republicans in our nation; there fore, for any Republican Presidential Candidate to be elected, they must be able to effectively win a majority of the Independents that vote. One candidate has shown himself to be the most able to win those voters. To become President, a Republican must be able to win in the south and they must be able to win in Florida. The ideal candidate should also be able to capture the votes of moderate Democrats in a general election. It is vital for our party to have a candidate who can retain the 55% of the Hispanic vote that our current President won in the last general election. Selecting a candidate that chooses to demogauge, instead of leading on the immigration issue, will not retain 55% of the Hispanic vote. There is one Republican running for President who has shown the ability to deliver more than just the votes of our party members that it will take for us to win in November. There is only one man running for President who has consistently out polled, head to head, all of the Democrats left in the race. There is only one person running for President, whom the Democrats fear in the General Election. That one candidate who can win the White House for our party, in the November General Election is Senator John McCain. The only thing left to find out is if John McCain can win in Florida that is the decision of the Republican voters of Florida. The voters in Florida have determined who has become President in the last 2 general elections. Republicans in the Sunshine state have an historic opportunity to actually pick the eventual President if they prove to the nation that Senator McCain can win in Florida. Florida your time is now, your nation is waiting, your voice is more important than any other, at this time. Choose greatness, choose wisely, make our country proud, and choose Senator McCain.
Posted by: charles ellis | January 26, 2008 8:51 PM
Bravo, Governor Crist. You, too, are an American hero for publicly telling your state and the rest of the nation that at the ballot box you plan to figuratively say the three words that have always brought comfort to our soldiers and instilled fear in our enemies since World War II: "I'm sending McCain."
Posted by: Jeff | January 26, 2008 8:53 PM
Charlie Crist is no Gov. Jeb Bush in fact his thanks for Bush's help is to endorse McCain a Democrat/Liberal while this seems monumental. It is but a snag in the road. Bush was for Mitt Romney like W he is centered--Crist is a yuppie and a puppie-- he is clueless. There are 21 states voting on 2/5/08 Crist is a nobody in comparison to Jeb.Crist wanted to one-up Jeb well he did it with an old man not Presidential. Mitt is an MBA and a JCD --McCain is sloppy old looking and 72 when he spesks on TV he has an uncontrollable "s" sound which is a whistling sound when pronouncing S. Jeb Bush would have been re-elected but he was limited to 2 terms this doesn't mean Crist an ungrateful person is a success but, 21 states voting on 2/5/08 This will change the good old boy network fast.Rush, Sean, Will, Coulter and Malkin,Levin will dim McCain's chances Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke don't make a winner. They are Democrats when you come down to it. Bill Kristol should be ashamed of himself but he revels in mischief. Fox news is in Crisis with Limbaugh laughing daily at their exploits.Jerry hite, Springfield, IL
Posted by: Jerry White | January 26, 2008 9:31 PM
For the party that hates gays....they surely lack gaydar!
Posted by: bill r. | January 27, 2008 12:20 AM
Instilled fear in our enemies? You've totally lost it Jeff. Al Qaeda wants us to bleed to death in Iraq, they've got bigger fish to fry, a nuclear armed Pakistan. Bush played right into their hands and now McCain wants another 100-years in the Mesopotamia wasteland.
Posted by: dt | January 27, 2008 3:03 AM
Come hell or high water this Reagan Republican won't vote for John "McAmnesty" McCain in November, if it comes to that.
Being a principled conservative Republican, I sat out '96 and '04 and will sit this one out if he is the nominee.
I doubt that I would be alone in this regard.
Posted by: politwriter | January 27, 2008 4:45 AM
My hope is that the people of Florida can see through McCain's Washington-style politics of having favors owed, special interests to pay and people in his pocket to address. You beg long enough, you will get the endorsements you want. It is what Washington Politicians do when they can't stand on their record. These are the acts of a desperate and angry man who was clearly showed up in the recent debate.
Posted by: Kelly Warnick | January 27, 2008 5:11 AM
MC Rove, a new John E. name. What new?
Posted by: John D | January 27, 2008 6:24 AM
RINO liberals backing fellow RINO liberals.
Does this surprise anyone?
Let's see what the Reagan conservative and mainstream Republican base has to say on Feb. 5th.
Posted by: politwriter | January 27, 2008 6:45 AM
With out a Republican President, the values that our great party holds in high esteem,
Posted by: charles ellis | January 26, 2008 8:51 PM
Even if that candidate doesn't really hold the same values, it is more important to win. We will sacrifice our values that we hold in high esteem. We want to capture the independents and moderate democrats and the heck with the true republicans.
Brilliant!
Posted by: bill r. | January 27, 2008 7:43 AM
One of the reasons that Jerry White gives for not liking Senator McCain is his age. Surely then, you must have opposed the candidacy of old Governor Reagan back in 1980.
Posted by: Tim1979 | January 27, 2008 7:58 AM
McCain looks like a faded wax figure in the photo.
Something from Madam Tussaud's American Chamber of Horrors.
Hero? Are we still hearing that lunatic claim for McCain?
The man was bombing civilians around Hanoi when he was shot down.
The entire Vietnam War was an insane holocaust, the greatest such event since Hitler's. I’ve always thought the black subterranean walls of the Washington Memorial fitting for this reason. That mass murder was a national shame.
Three million corpses left behind along with a deadly sea of Agent Orange and a million landmines to cripple thousands of poor farmers for years afterward.
And for what? Choosing a government the U.S. disapproved of.
The government of the artificial rump-state, South Vietnam, was in every detail as much a dictatorship as the one in the North. It was deliberately created in conniving with the departing French colonial power.
The U.S. had no business trying to tell the Vietnamese how to settle their affairs.
These facts considered plus the clear fact that the U.S. never bothered with the nicety of declaring war pretty much means that McCain and the other murderers of innocents were exactly what the Vietnamese called them, war criminals.
Actually, despite McCain's whimpering about his treatment, he and the other prisoners got off rather lightly.
Do a thought experiment: just imagine a North Vietnamese pilot during the war somehow getting through to a city in California and dropping bombs or napalm.
What would have happened to him if he were shot down?
He would have been torn limb from limb or lynched by the people who almost launched an atomic attack on Afghanistan because of something done by some Saudis and who used to enjoy family picnics during lynchings of blacks.
Posted by: John Chuckman, Toronto, Canada | January 27, 2008 8:45 AM
DIRTY POLITICS McCAIN STYLE. ANOTHER FAVOR BOUGHT. Clearly Governor Crist must have found out that Mitt Romney was not going to let him use the placement of Florida's Primary and it's importance to get a VP job or other Washington-style favor for Crist. Don't buy this same old McCain Washington-style bribe/favor politics of having people owed, special interests to cater to and people in his pocket to address. You strike the right self-serving deal with McCain, Crist and you will get the political gain that you want? This is what Washington Politicians do when they can't stand on their record. McCain is a desperate and angry man who will stop at nothing to vindicate his losses rather that serve an ideology.
Posted by: Kelly Warnick | January 27, 2008 8:51 AM
Shouda been a Caption Contest:
"Of course I'll waterboard you honey"
Posted by: Bubba | January 28, 2008 12:46 AM