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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumsin Crist I trust! And now I don't gotta make excuses. Charlie Crist is now a democrat!!!
The one and only person that wasn't a democrat that spit in Jeb Bush's face twice while he was Governor.
That made me like him
Congratulations Charlie! We (at least ME) welcomes you to the democratic party and whatever position you want to run for is fine with me.
And I would not be adverse to a Hillary45/Charlie Crist ticket in 2016 and reelected in 2020.
Ensuring Florida for the democrats even with Jeb running aginast them.
In Crist I trust!
And thank you for you did in Campaign 2012 for President Barack Obama!
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graham4anything
(11,464 posts)Former Republican Governor Charlie Crist has officially joined the Democratic Party, he announced on Friday evening.
Crist, who served as governor of Florida from 2007 to 2011, left the Republican Party after losing a Senate primary battle to Marco Rubio in 2010 -- switching his party affiliation to independent in order to run against now-Senator Rubio in the general election.
The change became official at a White House Christmas reception, the Tampa Bay Times reports, where "President Obama greeted the news with a fist bump."
Crist was a high-profile campaign surrogate for Obama this past election cycle, speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte this September in support of the president. "I didn't leave the Republican party," Crist said in his speech. "It left me."
Berlum
(7,044 posts)Who can blame him? Republicans have transgressed all the High Holy Ideals they like to espouse to others. That gets old and stanky for everyone, sooner or later.
sellitman
(11,606 posts)Tell him to go home where he belongs.
reACTIONary
(5,770 posts)If there were a regressive home, a centrist home and a progressive home, what do you think the split would be? How would that affect progressive progress?
Or do you think the regressives and centrists belong together in the Republican party and the progressives should be on their own?
sellitman
(11,606 posts)Others can feel different. This guy is way to conservative for me to ever support and would hope most in the party would agree.
reACTIONary
(5,770 posts)...relative to the electorate that he runs within. If he is more competitive than someone to the right, OK. If he knocks out someone who is to the left AND is competitive enough, then not so good.
I won't have a say, at the electoral level, since I won't be part of the electorate in any race he is in anytime soon.
redStateBlueHeart
(265 posts)Welcome to the darkside Charlie! 
Now if Colin Powell would just officially come out as a Democrat...
msongs
(67,395 posts)
Walk away
(9,494 posts)RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Another only-out-for-himself politician in the party.
What we need are more Kucinich types, not ex-republicans. I really hate to see people praise that republican here. DU is really going right, I guess?
What has the right ever got right? What did Crist ever do for Florida? That place, as far as I can tell, is a hell-hole.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)And remember, those that did not like him, sold LBJ down the river in 1968.
The single most liberal president in modern times was sold down the river by people wanting 100%.
and getting ZERO in return because of that same "we need more Kucinich type" talk.
How did that Nixon/Ford/Reagan/Bush41/Bush43/possiblity of Jeb in 2016 thingy work out?
Dennis Kucinich is a great guy, and in Israel, or the UK perhaps could have advanced further.
But that is not how America works, having won its freedom from the UK to not be them.
Talking and all is great, and Kucinich serves a purpose in bringing the axis of the country
back to where it was in the 1970s.
But remember, LBJ was far to the left of JFK/RFK and Jimmy Carter.
and America sold him down the river in 1968.
He would have won.
talk is nothing if you don't win. nothing at all.
IMHO of course.
Hillary/Crist 2016
btw-speaking of party switching- I am sure you know this but-
from wiki
Kucinich's political career began early. After running unsuccessfully in 1967, Kucinich was elected to the Cleveland City Council in 1969 at the age of twenty-three.[10] In 1972, Kucinich ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives, losing narrowly to incumbent Republican William E. Minshall, Jr. After Minshall's retirement in 1974 Kucinich sought the seat again, this time failing to get the Democratic nomination, which instead went to Ronald M. Mottl. Kucinich ran as an Independent candidate in the general election, placing third with about 30% of the vote. In 1975, Kucinich became clerk of the municipal court in Cleveland and served in that position for two years.[
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)So... what are you avoiding talking about Crist? Is he that bad that you have to blah blah away from him?
From what I have seen Crist is just for Crist.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)everyone has an angle as Bing Crosby stated in White Christmas.
show me a politician without an angle, and well, you can't. None of them don't have an angle.
Everyone wants something.
It is a strawman to say they don't.
There is NO democrat in Florida that supported President Obama in 2012 like Charlie Crist did.
Remind me, who won Florida in 2012? And who's help enabled that to happen?
Remind me, who extended voting hours in Florida in 2008, so that every Black voter was able to have his/her vote counted(for President Obama). Unlike in 2000.
Hillary45/Crist. 2016
again, why I don't know, but there were people that hated LBJ. The single most liberal President ever in modern times.
A winner does what a loser doesn't.(or won't).(from a line in a Clint Eastwood movie(c).
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Florida has solved the climate change problem because Crist made it happen?
I'm sorry, you fawning over Crist is just dumb. He's is a Crist for Crist republican. Don't tell me... you'd eat coffee beans from an elephant, right?
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)Last edited Sat Dec 8, 2012, 07:27 AM - Edit history (1)
BTW-my board name is about Bob Graham, Florida governor/Senator and should have been
VP.
There was one just about perfect man and politician.Talked the talk, walked the walk.
But he too was sold down the river and not picked for VP by 2 people who did not get seated as President.
Had either of the two picked him, and not the person they picked
they would have been seated.
Yapping about why they weren't seated is meaningless, in that they were never seated and there is no way to undo the past. Except to learn from it for the future.
Purity, purists, and those who cannot expand from the purity are destined to talk a great game. But that and five dollars will buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks, but won't get one seated as President.
BTW- Dennis Kucinich backed President Obama's health care 100%, once he got his 25 free airtime nationwide minutes and all. At the end of the day, that vote for it, is all that matters.
Dennis knows that winning is the important thing.
and people evolve.
Like my thinking about the Clinton's and Hillary in particular.
That is what grown ups do.
Being rigid and pure is great, but it don't get things done
(BTW- Jefferson was the singular biggest hypocrite, and dare I say LIAR of all time.
He wrote "All men are created equal".
Yet his version of men did not include blacks. Nor did it include women.
men was suppose to mean people. Not be exclusion to only men, and only those men Thomas Jefferson felt qualified.
Yet he kept slaves. And abused the female slaves.
Yet he is for some reason idolized.
When someone can explain that to me, then talk to me about a candidate being for himself. or herself.
As if Thomas Jefferson wasn't for Thomas Jefferson.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)You talk about everyone but Crist. Don't even respond to my slams...
Graham might have been ok, but he once said something like "the people just need to listen to the elites, we know what they need." In the book "Stolen Water".
And Graham did real well for himself and his family by being in government. Real well. And here we are with hardly any solar, sea level rise and a ruined Florida environment. Thanks to Graham and Crist and Bush, et al.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)Like those that didn't like LBJ, you have specific wedge issues and don't think about the big picture, the prize at the end
and yeah, how that that Ralph Nader thingy do for 2000?
He singlehandedly handed the election to Bush in 2000.
in NEW HAMPSHIRE.
forget florida, it was NH that turned the election
Those 4 electoral votes to Bush gave Bush the 270 needed.Florida would have been irrelevant.
Keep that in mind.
It was Nader(supposedly an environmentalist) that threw the election to Bush.
No matter which way you dice it, it was Nader.
Speaking about purity.
Again-
a person needs to change what they can
accept what they can't
and know the difference
there are just somethings NO ONE can change and it won't happen
but the other things are what makes a difference in day to day life
BTW-you do know that Bobby Kennedy as AG for John F. Kennedy-wiretapped, and continued to wiretap Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. don't you?
I wonder what Dennis Kucinich would have said to that back then.
Show me a person who is perfect and well, no person is perfect. They are all just people
(people who need people(c Styne/Merrill)
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)again.
Yes we are familiar with how the right wing of the Dem Party tried to shut down Women and Gays by calling them 'single issue voters'. A total lie of course, but what can one expect from the Right?
I remember the derogatory attacks on minorities in the Dem Party 'blaming and shaming' them into silence just so we could 'WIN'!! Because they don't seem to know what winning is.
Well those minorities did NOT become silent and many of them DID vote for many Dems by default and are no longer a firm, base of this party. They forced the issues that were important to them and the Party had no option, IF they wanted their votes, but to follow. We should not have to fight that hard though for what is the Democratic Party platform, or was.
If the Third Way prevails which is what you appear to be advocating here, with your snide remarks about single issue/wedge issue voters (we get it despite the cover up language) you can count on losing many of those reviled-by-the-right-wing of the party 'single issue voters' and you need to accept the fact that they only voted for this party this time to give them one more chance to pull back from the rightwing direction they have hurtling towards over the past several decades.
It's happened before in history, the people are no longer ignorant of the 'political games' you are so proud of and we don't like them. Because while political operatives may be able to view politics as a game, the average voter does not have that luxury.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)you don't seem to know your history
your torch the earth statements above are totally well, so gosh darn wrong.
The same scorched earth type sabatoged 1968, 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, 2004
The core coaltion love President Obama and President Clinton42 and President Clinton45.
who are you kidding?
How's that Ralph Nader thingydingy doing for you?
If not mistaken, Hillary is the single #1 in the USA in popularity with Gays. Even ahead of President Obama. Do you think they will risk an unknown, unvetted candidate that will get their butt kicked by Jeb Bush to reverse the foward movement of today?
As for civil rights? WTF do you think put 2 female justices on the US Supreme Court?
or did you forget?
Who do you think put a female in the SOS job?
Who do you think used alot of his capital putting Elizabeth Warren into his cabinet, and then finding a quick path for her to become Senator-Elect?
Who do you think put Susan Rice in the UN and shortly when the time is right, will nominate her for the SOS of his second term.
I betcha John McCain would not have done that. Nor Mittens.
So, who are you kidding?
and again, you yourself use the word We, which conotates a Team.
As President Obama goes, so go I.
We will never have a singular President like Him again in this lifetime.
Hillary45 may come close though.
Lincoln=FDR=LBJ=Obama=Carter as the five best Presidents ever.
can it be
Lincoln=FDR=LBJ=Obama=Carter=Hillary? as the six best presidents ever?
Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern were super great guys. But super great don't win the presidency and neither of them did. Neither did HHH (who was to the right of LBJ).
Mike Dukakis is everything and more. But his picture is not on the placemat of the Presidents either. Same with Al Gore and John Kerry.We can all cry and mope and whine about thefts, but crying and moping and whining don't get their picture on that placemat of the Presidents.
However, President Obama and 43 others pictures are. And soon, that male only club will be broken with President Obama's singular choice for President, Hillary Rodham45.
President Obama is everything and more that Ted Kennedy dreamed of when he endorsed him back in 2008(or was it 2007?) The Dream lives on with President Obama and to follow Hillary45
and how's that Rubio thingy doing for you in Florida? And that Rick Scott thingy?
Charlie Crist will win the governorship back for the Dems in 2014.
and with the governorship, that controls the election bureau, which with Jeb running against Hillary45, will be important.
Without the control of the election bureau, so much of 2000 will not happen in 2016.
(though with NH and without nader, Gore would have been on that placemats of the Presidents but because of Ralph Nader, Gore is not pictured there.)
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Hillary will never get my support. I do not support women who support Bush's foreign policies. And we women are not fooled by the installation of women with the intention of having our pretty little heads believe that is all we need, 'women'. There are plenty of Right Wing women also.
As for Civil Rights in this country? Are you kidding? Show me which anti-Constitutional Bush Legislation that has been rolled back over the past four years?
We liberals supported Progressive Democratic candidates for Congress during this last election and will continue to do so until we have enough of them to end the attack on our Civil Liberties by Bush policies, most of which are not only still in effect but some have even been strengthened.
Elizabeth Warren for President! Or Alan Grayson!
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)That explains it all.
Silly me to assume most people here were Bobby Kennedy, Teddy Kennedy, JFK, fans like myself
How gosh darn silly of me.
And one calls themself liberal?
I am sure the two people above, that you have an affinity for
(who are unknown in the sense that there is no voting record as they are brand new, and unknown in the sense that they have never been vetted nationally and you would not even know what position either of them would have taken on many issues at all.
Being that just about 100% of everyone voted for.(and see separate response for this).
I didn't realize one were talking a stale talking point vs. reality soundkabibble.
oops.
and I bet one don't realize that Bobby Kennedy wiretapped Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
oops epic fail here.
but then some people also forgot that President Lincoln(the singular best president of all time) was a republican.
And oops, guess you forgot that if the first candidate mentioned as a personal favorite in the post I am quoting, didn't have President Obama on his side, OOPS, she would still just be a teacher in Mass. She was in President Obama's TEAM and then that led to her Senate run.
Without President Obama and his team, GIVING her the opening, she would not even be a senator elect today, and if not for his coattails in his landslide election, the election was a nailbiter the entire way.(plus some badly campaiging done by Scott Brown toward the end cost him votes at just the time he needed them.)
There but for the Grace of Obama,and his team, is she senate-elect.
You might feel that is harsh statement, but politics is politics, and it takes a team to make a candidate. One doesn't snap their fingers like Barbara Eden in I dream of Jeannie (Rest in Peace Major Nelson), or crinkle their nose like Samantha in Bewitched did and become Senator or Congressman or later President. This is not a Frank Capra movie based on fantasy not dreams like Mr. Smith goes to Washington.
(or even the absurb notion of a show like Homeland, which thinks Brody would actually be able to be Vice President nominee without having a resume in politics.)
But the most amazing thing is, I myself truly, madly, deeply, love Bill Ayers.
But I am not naive enough to know that those outside of the mainstream, do NOT
have any chance of winning a general election.
We saw what happened with one issue candidates that were great people like George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy. They were not elected President.
George McGovern, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Angus King, Bill Ayers, Abbie Hoffman
are /were all great people.
But in 2016, on election day, Elizabeth Warren, like Charlie Crist, like Mike Bloomberg and like Barack Obama and Michelle Obama will be voting for Hillary Clinton45 for President.Along with Charlie Crist.
And if Charlie Crist is the pick Hillary makes for VP as they used to say on Laugh-In,
(a show I am sure as Elizabeth Warren is old enough to have been about 19 or 20 years old, when Laugh-In started in 1968 (she was born in 1949), You bet your sweep bippy she will be voting for Hillary45/Crist48 for President.
She is a team player, I would assume, no? (though I have no reason to assuredly say that, one would believe it to be true). If she is not a team player, she would not have wanted a job on Team Obama's team. Unless she is NOT a democratic candidate, in which case she would be a dreaded 3rd party and run against the democratic candidate in a Presidential election then she is a Team Democratic isn't she? She will then, to well, quote a title of a Woody Allen movie "Take the money and Run". I am sure she would not NOT take the money from the Democratic Party, and run. That would be naive to think.
Also, btw, tell me-what are her foreign affairs issues? Do you have any idea?
Being that she has no opinions whatsoever.
But please no high/mighty with me. Because Ms. Warren has NO position on those issues except that she stated (I will post this in a separate response to your response but let's just say without any effort whatsoever, I found one quick answer to reply to you )
As for a Mass/California ticket?
Pray tell, how one would get 270 electoral votes with a Mass/California ticket of two relative unknowns nationally, running against Jeb Bush, who would instantly portray it as the most liberal ticket of all time and with just about NO record of any type to take to America and make the case, they would instantly be defined by Jeb Bush and his operatives and it would be Mike Dukakis all over again. (and I love Mike Dukakis, but the Bush family destroyed him). Jeb would say it was far to the left of Mike Dukakis.
And to get elected, Elizabeth Warren would have to destroy and tear down Hillary Clinton, an American Icon, and one like Eleanor Roosevelt, that is considered one of the singular greatest Women in American history, thereby fracturing the party even worse than what happened in 1968 or 1980 or 2000.
I do wish Bill Ayers would run for office in Illinois (perhaps for the Jesse Jackson Jr. seat???)
I do love Bill Ayers.
but I myself would never suggest Bill Ayers, a distinguished Prof. from a liberal state, run for President. I myself am smart enough politically to know it wouldn't happen.
Tom Hayden only got so far himself. (and I truly deeply madly love Tom Hayden.
But not as a realistic presidential candidate in 2016 vs. Jeb Bush. Ain't gonna happen.
And, sigh, wish Abbie Hoffman were still here to fight for us, but he didn't hang in there.
I can picture Abbie leading OWS like he led us in the 60s. If only he stuck around a few more years.
And, sigh, on the day John Lennon was killed, Imagine John Lennon as President candidate.
But I know, he was born in the UK and not able to be President.
Had LBJ won 1968 though, meaning that RFK would still be here, and perhaps had Dr. King still been alive too, it is interesting to think that perhaps Dr. King, in 1972 or 1976, would have been the VP choice with Bobby Kennedy(who prior had wiretapped Dr. King as JFK's AG)
and it was a known fact that Dr. King
well, from wiki-
Politics
As the leader of the SCLC, King maintained a policy of not publicly endorsing a U.S. political party or candidate: "I feel someone must remain in the position of non-alignment, so that he can look objectively at both parties and be the conscience of both—not the servant or master of either."[31]
In a 1958 interview, he expressed his view that neither party was perfect, saying, "I don't think the Republican party is a party full of the almighty God nor is the Democratic party. They both have weaknesses ... And I'm not inextricably bound to either party."[32]
King critiqued both parties' performance on promoting racial equality:
Actually, the Negro has been betrayed by both the Republican and the Democratic party. The Democrats have betrayed him by capitulating to the whims and caprices of the Southern Dixiecrats. The Republicans have betrayed him by capitulating to the blatant hypocrisy of reactionary right wing northern Republicans. And this coalition of southern Dixiecrats and right wing reactionary northern Republicans defeats every bill and every move towards liberal legislation in the area of civil rights.[33]
Although King never publicly supported a political party or candidate for president, in a letter to a civil rights supporter in October 1956 he said that he was undecided as to whether he would vote for Adlai Stevenson or Dwight Eisenhower, but that "In the past I always voted the Democratic ticket."[34]
In his autobiography, King says that in 1960 he privately voted for Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy: "I felt that Kennedy would make the best president. I never came out with an endorsement. My father did, but I never made one." King adds that he likely would have made an exception to his non-endorsement policy in 1964, saying "Had President Kennedy lived, I would probably have endorsed him in 1964."[35]
.............
if Dr. Martin Luther King was smart enough to never speak in absolutes, I think, as he and President Obama are much smarter than me, I will agree with Dr. King
and in 2016, if/when Hillary Rodham Clinton is the nominee, Elizabeth Warren will 100% endorse and vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton as the 45th President of the United States of America.
With Hillary in the race, Ms.Warren will NOT be running in 2016.
She is not fool enough I would hope to fracture the party.Nor tear down the single most popular Woman in America (well, after Michelle Obama, but Michelle is not running in 2016).
Her fans do a disservice suggesting it.
IMHO only.And 100% politically speaking. Politics is a team sport. NOTHING gets built by itself. It takes a team to become a President.
(and thanks to the great community organizers in Chicago and the nation, President Obama became President Obama.
And the Hillary haters look to Hillary's past and see the wrong link.
The correct link is Saul Alinsky who, from Chicago, was one of the singular great community organizers from the left, and who in a direct link helped President Obama win the election.
He is a great man (read a bio on him if you don't believe me), and well, it takes a team to win.
And winning is the only thing. Because losing is nothing.
And 100% of nothing is still nothing. No matter how many ways one says otherwise.
(and look for different response shortly that is specific and short).
Don't want it to get lost in this big weighty response).
but I composed and found that info in mere seconds/minutes. Imagine if a team of Jeb Bush professionals were looking into things.
And every single piece of dirt on Hillary has been exposed ad naseum, and the people have digested and disgarded it. Making Hillary the one and only candidate talked about for 2016 to have been vetted nationally, giving her such a huge advantage it is immeasurable.
That cannot be said for any of the others.
IMHO of course.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren left the door open yesterday to military action against Iran in the face of that country's growing nuclear threat--bolstering her national security credentials: "Our number one responsibility is to protect Americans from terrorism, that's our job, so being tough on terrorism is enormously important," said Warren yesterday at a campaign stop in Gloucester.
Source: Hillary Chabot in Boston Herald , Oct 14, 2011
It took me about 1/10th of a second to find this.
Her fans should not be so quick with the absolutes and the tearing down of other candidates to advance theirs.
As Bing Crosby said in the White Christmas movie "Everybody has an angle".
g4a-My angle is I want to win.
Period.
End of story.
Winning is all that matters.
If you don't win, there is nothing.
And 100% of nothing is still nothing.
Absolutes lead to NOTHING. g4a(c)me.2012.
bread_and_roses
(6,335 posts)You don't know know why we wanted to oust LBJ? Thousands of Americans were dying and millions of Vietnamese. We were incinerating children, destroying a country. We were holding our breath waiting to find out what number our brothers, our lovers, our friends got in the death lottery. We were supposed to think that was all OK because he was a Democrat?
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)drill now. If that is FL's number one environmentalist, then FL has some serious issues to deal with.
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/flashback-charlie-crist-onstage-sarah-palin-drill-here-drill-now
Charlie also said Palin was more qualified to be President than Obama one cycle ago.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/crist-2008-sarah-palin-more-qualified-to-be-president-than-barack-obama/article/2506035
BillyJack
(819 posts)Also, you said, ", LBJ was far to the left of JFK/RFK and Jimmy Carter. "
I don't believe that statement you made.
How so?
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)anyone would have done the same thing in war.
However, on all the great social issues, LBJ was singular after FDR in getting them passed and into law
I myself don't care much about military issues. They are what they are. Have been since the dinosaurs fought each other. Always will be.
But on domestic isssues, there was FDR and there was LBJ and there is Obama and there is Carter.
But it was LBJ that rammed into law the Civil Rights/ Voting rights acts.
While others talked, LBJ did.
And the shame about 1968 is, had it been LBJ, then Bobby would have won in 1972 and 1976.
Eugene McArthy (like George McGovern) were great people. But seriously, neither was ever going to win the presidency.
LBJ would have defeated Nixon in 1968. Dirty one it would have been, but he would have.
both before and after Bobby(and it's a known fact, Bobby would not have entered the race if LBJ did not bow out. The people sold him down the river. Biggest mistake in American history after Slavery. IMHO
it directly led to Reagan/Bush/Bush/ and might to Jeb.
If we dems are stupid enough to do the same thing again.
Lincoln=FDR=LBJ=OBAMA=Carter, the 5 singular bests.
But without LBJ, President Obama could not have even voted, let alone become President.
No one else did it.
LBJ did.
Again, social issues. I don't much care about the military.
Grant me the serenity to change the things I can
Grant me the wisdom to accept that which I cannot change
And the wisdom to know the difference
LBJ did just that.
Shame the people didn't remember that in 1968.
Anyone has to admit- had LBJ not gotten out of the race, everything would have been better, and I bet the war would have ended sooner.
And LBJ was the singular best majority leader in the Senate of all time too.
And btw- like Lincoln, it took working and getting some on the other side to vote with him, to get those acts signed
(and those 2 are 2 of countless other major social issues attained by LBJ.)
And the same with Crist.
Again, the politician has to work with the people who brought him to the dance.
But you have to accept that. otherwise he never would have entered the dance in the first place.But it's the little things that go against the party, against those that show the true nature.
He didn't have to do what he did and go against Jeb and the party in so many ways.
But he did. Took a lot of courage.
And the way the repubs are hammering him and all, shows.
If all the repubs would become Dems, then we would get 100% of everything.
Welcome Charlie Crist, Democratic Party.
Purists be damned.
SQUEE
(1,315 posts)He is singularly responsible for the escalation of the War in Viet Nam, study the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and the behind the scenes maneuvers Ol' Lindy went through to get it passed. Then look at the facts and info he had showing the entire incident was being overblown. 2 uncles are on a wall in DC, and my father, a proud Texan that voted Democrat his entire life, suffered 30 years from extreme PTSD and effects of Agent Orange exposure because of LBJ's and McNamara's "little" war.
He unlike many was not a draftee he enlisted to serve at 17 and spent 4 and a half years in SE Asia,and 26 years enlisted in the USMC, because he was told he and his fellow Marines and soldiers were making the world safe for democracy. A crass lie by a man he admired and voted for.. You may not care about the military, but it changed my family and this country.
LBJ had a choice, he chose poorly and we as a nation are the worse for it.
reACTIONary
(5,770 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)not all ex-republicans are cut from the same cloth. I give you Jim Jeffords and Linc Chafee as an example. And neither became a dem when they left the republican party.
Michigan Alum
(335 posts)I always thought he was like more of a Democrat.
kydo
(2,679 posts)I didn't vote for him when he ran for gov but his chair ad was hilarious. When he won I thought for sure he'd just continue jebbies dismantling of my state. Then he got married. I still think it is for show, I think he is gay (not a good thing if you are a repub) and this was a way to shut the crazies up because yes Crist does always think of himself first. And I pegged his getting married to thinking white house down the road.
But like I said when he got married something changed, he started taking more moderate stances on issues and bills. By the time stupid martinez was getting ready to step down as senator Crist had morphed into a moderate (leaning a little more to the right) Dem then moderate repub that he was.
If he had ran for re-election for gov (no matter which party), I would have voted for him. But he pissed off to many repubs and became an independent. Then like a fool entered the Sen race making it a three way race.
As much as I like him, I blame him for rubio. If he had just stayed gov we might not have rubio. But nope he ran as an indie and I think he hurt the dem more then rubio and rubio won.
However I would vote Crist for gov if he ran again, if he was the dem candidate for sen I'd also vote for him. But I still blame him for, the state of fl, and the country having to deal with the fake man named rubio.
Walk away
(9,494 posts)
oswaldactedalone
(3,490 posts)Charlie Crist was a walk-on QB on the Wake Forest University football team back in some very dark days for that program. The football program lost so much during and after the time he was there, it's futility was immortailized by the group, Steely Dan, in it's song Deacon Blues. From one Demon Deacon to another, welcome Charlie in from the dark side that is the Republican Party.
TheKentuckian
(25,023 posts)There is no magic, we have met him way more than he has come to us. Anything out the mold pretty much came with the package.
Raine
(30,540 posts)
Rowdyboy
(22,057 posts)And will probably be the next governor of Florida.
ibegurpard
(16,685 posts)I'll keep him at arm's length if you don't mind.
RandiFan1290
(6,229 posts)These people are crooks and they don't give a damn what label they take for a decade or two.
Democrats can be so naive. 
Michigan Alum
(335 posts)One Dem senator kiddingly said that Crist was "the best Democratic governor they ever had."
dballance
(5,756 posts)That's what moderate Repubs are called these days - Democrats.
RandiFan1290
(6,229 posts)pushing the Democratic party even further to the right.
smokey nj
(43,853 posts)
Rider3
(919 posts)But, I'm hopeful!
Hotler
(11,416 posts)Repug light
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)
DCBob
(24,689 posts)He had to hide it to win in Florida as a Repuke. He will be a major force for Dems in Florida.
It is unfortunate many FL Dems could not forsee this when they refused to support him for Senate in 2010.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)President than Barack Obama. He said that in 2008. Yet you claim Democrats should have been supporting him since 2004? Did you agree with him about Palin's relative qualifications for President, did you join Charlie and Sarah chating 'Drill Here, Drill Now' on stages in Florida?
Just wondering about the metrics and details. How, in 08, could a Democrat support a man who said Palin was more qualified than Obama?
DCBob
(24,689 posts)but yes, he said some dumb things in the past but i do believe he is more liberal than a conservative and he will support the vast majority of our core Democratic prinicples if reelected to a public office.
reACTIONary
(5,770 posts)...as a democratic, he will support the democratic ticket, regardless of what he really thinks. That's called party discipline.
forestpath
(3,102 posts)he's an out and out phoney.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)it is a strawman argument you are using.
It is a gotcha question that is irrelevant.
Don't you know how politics is played?
It's liike Baseball.
One can't be a Boston Red Sox and profess love for the Yankees
then next year they are traded to the Yankees and they hate the Red Sox
purists and absolutists are what has constantly ruined the democratic party as much as the rightwing extremists ruin their parties
How did Thomas Jefferson keep a straight face when he said All men are created equal, but didn't apply them to the slaves he kept? (never mind that women weren't equal either.)
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)So it's all a game to you? Well, to the average voter we don't LIKE how 'politics are played'. Don't you know that this is the problem? 'How politics is played'??
Unbelievable what we see here on a democratic board these days.
If politics continues to be 'played' this way, there will be seismic shift in party politics over the next few years.
Democrats only won by default this time. See what the huge Coalition formed before the election had to say about why they would, THIS TIME, support Democrats but how they do not trust them anymore, which is the reason for that coalition.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)you say "WE" in your sentence above in the first paragraph
that means you are on a team too (Team You). Isn't the irony so deliciously ironic?
What I figure that means is, nothing wrong with politics being a game, as long as your team is what you had in mind.( which reeks of the Bill Bradley/Russ Feingold whine and take the ball home and leave the arena philosophy).
I still don't understand why anyone would now want to change what the peaceful revolution won in 2008 and retook the Championship again in 2012.
I would take 10 Charlie Crist's over 10 one issue people anytime, anywhere
One issue candidates never win a national election. After you get past the one issue, there is nothing there and they lose 10 out of 10 times. Neither do an anyone but candidate.
Never, ever, ever, ever.
Democrats won by default in 2012???huh???
Democrats did not win by default.
Team Obama won by a landslide with the same core voters that elected him last time.
Whatever President Obama wants is fine by me.
Hope whatever he wants wins for the next 100 years each and every time.
Because he hasn't made one mistake yet
BTW-I think I am the average citizen.
And this average citizen does not want to veer from the course won in 2008 and 2012
We have gotten massive change for the better
And any one issue candidate will lose to Jeb in 2016
Luckily Hillary45 will kick Jeb's butt as she is the only multi-issue person on the list.
and I wish Bush41 a full recovery from his pnemonia he is battling, because I hope he is here to see his son Jeb's rear end kicked back to the Bush compound the evening of the 2016 election.
If politics is a baseball game, that will be the 3rd strike and the Bush family is out in 2016.
Welcome Charlie Crist. Would love it if it is Vice President Crist48 to President Hillary Clinton's45
In Obama I trust. In some one issue candidate I do not trust. Nor some anarchist candidate that would want to tear down what was won the last 8 years.
BTW- Axelrod looks great without the moustache, don't you think?
Hope he and Plouffe come back to run the Hillary45/Crist48 campaign.
In what world would a team that President Obama supports, not keep the same core coalition going? The only reason Hillary lost in 2008 was she did not have that core coaltion.
Now she does.
BTW- remember the reason West Wing was so popular all those years? And why soon as President Obama won, there no longer was a reason for West Wing, and it was cancelled?
Because West Wing was a continuation of the Clinton era, and when Bush won, it was the faux shadow presidency Bush wasn't.
Then President Obama won, and who needs a faux shadow president when you got the real deal.
Same thing will be when Hillary45 follows President Obama44.
No need for an imaginary Jed when you will get Hillary45 who will deliver a solid knock out of the real Jeb.
anyone else would lose to him.
It takes a Clinton to beat a Bush. Again.
(having Charlie on the ticket would be just desserts for Jeb.)
btw-the four times delicious irony is-I would LOVE Ramon Antonio Gerard Estevez to have become President. But I know damn well, the public would never elect him.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)right in order to make it ineffective as an opposition to the GOP.
If you can't beat 'em, sabotage 'em, ain't that right?
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)1KansasDem
(251 posts)washed up as an independent and soon to be washed up as a democrat.
Charlie Crist only cares about Charlie Crist.
A political whore.
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)the Democratic Party continues to move to the right.
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)I'm voting for anything that runs against rick scott
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)Of course, Governor Crist will take some positions that many of us here will find annoying. There is something that attracted him to the GOP all these years.
What is worth mentioning is that this kind of defection shows that the right wing is succeeding in making the GOP irrelevant. They won't win elections by calling voters who don't go along with anti-American lazy moochers and sluts who are going to Hell. Only the ideological descendants of the John Birch Society or Jesse Helms are at home in today's Republican Party. Whatever Governor Crist may be, he isn't that.
By the time the Democratic Party becomes too big to be just a big tent, the Republican Party, isolated as a party of crypto-fascists who hate blacks, Latinos, Asians, religious minorities, gays and women more than they love America, who use the word Liberty in every sentence in order to sound noble but make it clear that they mean by Liberty the freedom of the rich to oppress the poor and what is left of the middle class, will be swept into the dust bin. Then an America with a completely marginalized and irrelevant right wing can get on with the business of building democracy and fulfilling its true destiny.
