February 23, 2009

Crist Makes His Bet On Stimulus, Pres. Obama

Reporting
Michael Williams

MIAMI (CBS4) ―

President Barack Obama speaks during the closing of the Fiscal Responsibility Summit in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House in Washington on Feb. 23, 2009.
Saul Loeb/AFP/Fox Searchlight Films

Governor Charlie Crist isn't blinking. Two weeks after embracing President Obama's stimulus plan when the president came to Fort Myers, Florida's governor continues to take heat from many in Republican circles. They say he's tone deaf to GOP opposition to the $787 billion dollar spending/tax cut package.

On NBC's Meet the Press, Crist was asked if he is an "Obama Republican." The governor didn't miss a beat. He said, "I'm a Florida Republican and in the Florida way we are working together in a bipartisan fashion to do what is right for the people."

Crist welcomes the $12 billion he says is likely to come Florida's way from the federal stimulus spending. The governor would rather take political heat now than face the much deeper passions that will be aroused at home if the Sunshine State's economic crisis is not slowed.

To that end, Governor Crist hopes stimulus money can put the brakes on huge classroom cutbacks and unchecked job and home losses. His political future-either a re-election bid in 2010 or a run for the U.S. Senate are at stake here.

Fernand Amandi, a political pollster for Bendixen & Associates puts it this way. He says, "I think you will see how Teflon Charlie is. It will be determined after these two budget sessions which I think will be the worst in Florida history. If he (Crist) can come out on the other side unscathed, he will prove himself as a politician."

For the moment Florida votes are willing to give him a bipartisan benefit of the doubt. It doesn't hurt, of course, that Crist can still bank on high poll ratings. It is capital he can afford to spend at times like this, even if that means embracing a Democratic president, to the consternation of some hard-core Republicans.

One voter, Natalie Pons, summed up the matter. She said, "I think it is smart to support it (the stimulus package). We elected a Democratic president and his ideas into office, so I think we all have to get together and support them, whatever it means." Governor Crist—indeed all politicians—can only hope voters are so forgiving with the passage of time.

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