NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT: He's denied it publicly, repeatedly, and clearly, but Republican gubernatorial nominee Charlie Crist has yet to shake the talk that he's gay. There is no evidence that it's hurting his campaign, but the Crist-is-gay chatter that went on during the Republican primary has now ramped up among Democratic activists and liberal bloggers after a South Florida alternative weekly weighed in on the matter.
New Times Broward-Palm Beach did its part to "out" Crist with a recent story based on anonymous, second-hand sources. The report said unnamed sources had heard a 21-year-old man say he had a tryst with Crist - the young man denied it - and that the man had named another man supposedly intimate with Crist.
"There's no truth, just the ring of truth," is how the writer summed up his report. But it was enough to prompt bloggers and individual Democratic activists to flood reporters with e-mails demanding the media "expose" Crist.
Crist, who is single and dating a St. Petersburg woman, called the account false. Campaigning through Central Florida Saturday, Crist's opponent, Democrat Jim Davis, said he had heard about the New Times article but hadn't read it and considered the issue irrelevant.
"The issues in this campaign are education, property taxes and property insurance," the Tampa congressman said.
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/10/29/State/CFO_candidates_let_cr.shtml