Charlie Crist: "I'm cheap. I really am."

[seafan]

These comments belong in the 'What'tha hell?' file.

Earlier in the week, Crist campaigned across the Florida Panhandle as well as in Orlando and Miami, sounding confident of the outcome on election day.

He has been the front-runner all year, and although his campaign admits the polls will tighten, no one in the campaign believes Crist is in danger of losing.

Aboard his campaign motor home, Crist is relaxed and having a good time. He shows off the patches he bought at a drugstore to put on the bottom of his shoes, which had holes in their soles.

"I'm cheap. I really am," he says.

But he also says one of the biggest differences between him and Davis is that Davis is dour and Crist is a "happy warrior." Crist believes that contrast helps him with voters. And it is a point he continually stresses when talking to crowds. He tells them Davis is "depressing."

snip

Phil Musser, executive director of the Republican Governors Association, said that though "2006 is challenging for us nationally" with nine open races for governor, he feels "good about Florida."

"Charlie Crist is the hardest working retail politician there is this cycle," said Musser. "And he's on the right side of the issues."

WTH is a "retail politician??"

A politician who ends up costing the consumer big bucks?

[Freddie Stubbs]

1. Retail politics

is one-on-one campaigning with voters. Shaking hands, kissing babies, and making small talk.

[seafan]

2. Oh, the sales guy who knows little or nothing about how the product works? Thanks.

Had me worried there. :)

[seasat]

3. I thought it meant what you could buy him for.

:) He has cheap Walmart pricing on his principles. He has sucked in about a million from big sugar, over 2 million from insurance, several million from big developers, and at least a million from the utilities. Heck, he ought to just sell sponsor logos for his suit.

[seasat]

4. Here is an interesting article on Crist's "populism"

(LINK)

But his political tendency to say what people want to hear has already set him at odds with Republican lawmakers.

In speech after speech, Crist has addressed the state's two thorniest dilemmas with feel-good promises to cut property taxes and insurance rates with solutions dismissed by Republican lawmakers.
...
"Populism to me is just reflecting the wishes of the people and it has a very positive tone when you think of it as being responsive to the people we govern," Baxley said. "But on a different level, I think leadership is leading from somewhere with personal conviction. Most good ideas start at the edge of the paradigm. I think frequently there is dissonance between what people want to hear and what people need to hear."

I think Baxley nails Chameleon Charlie with that statement.