Charlie Crist certainly can’t match war chests and ad buys with Gov. Rick Scott. But the point may become moot if there are many more silver-platter opportunities served up like that recent one in Orlando. That’s when the Florida Council of 100, a GOP-leaning, ostensibly politically savvy group of business leaders, invited both the current governor and his predecessor to speak. Oops.
Then they uninvited Crist, a life member of the council, two days before the Ritz-Carlton spring meeting. Oops squared.
Florida’s corporate leadership had just snubbed the populist candidate. If there’s anything Crist must have–even more than money–it’s visceral reasons for Democrats to turn out and vote for him in November. As if, you know, he really were one of them. A public snub by corporate sorts who didn’t want to offend Scott was right in Crist’s for-the-people wheelhouse.
So Crist, as we know, was hardly a no-show. More like an I’ll-show-you-how-to-make-political- lemonade appearance. He came, he saw an opportunity for free press and he conquered any sense of chagrin or anger. Had he spoken, it would have displeased the self-congratulating Scott, but no one would have known details because Council of 100 events, ironically, are not open to the press and go largely ignored.
Not this one. At his ad hoc press conference, Crist labeled the snubbing “galactically stupid” and then worked in his speech talking points.
Interestingly, Paul Tash, chairman and CEO of the Tampa Bay Times, is (presumably still) a council member and made sure Crist’s ungiven speech was given prominent placement on the Times’ editorial page. Among Crist’s more salient points: criticism of Florida Polytech, renewal of efforts to create “a real high speed rail and mass transit system” and commitment “to open the borders with Cuba.”