What is a proper measure are Crist's actions in January and February. Crist broke ranks with many in the Republican Party by publicly campaigning for the stimulus package on television and with the president. He lobbied Florida's congressional delegation to vote for the bill. And he signed Florida's budget, which was balanced because the state received billions of dollars in federal stimulus money. (The stimulus provides Florida $15.7 billion over three budget years ending next budget year.)Charlie claims that his statements praising the stimulus were really efforts to squeeze as many benefits for Florida as possible out of the final bill. While anybody with at least a 3rd grade education can see that that clearly isn't true, Katie Connolly of Newsweek decided to see if his efforts to get the best deal for Floridians really panned out.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Thursday even acknowledged Crist's support. "I think his words at that (Fort Myers) event speak for themselves," Gibbs said. "I think he was very supportive of the legislation and supportive of the benefits that it would have and has had for — for the state of Florida in seeing positive economic growth."
Facing a primary challenge from the conservative wing of the Republican Party, Crist appears to be trying to rewrite history. But there are mountains of evidence that he not only supported the stimulus, he sang its praises. The meter is ablaze: Pants On Fire.
But let's assume for a moment that Crist's pants aren't on fire. Let's accept his comment to CNN on Wednesday that "I understood that [the bill] was going to pass, and I wanted to be able to utilize it for the benefit of my fellow Floridians." Well, if that was the case, he hasn't done a very good job. As the Miami Herald reported back in August, Florida ranked last among the states for federal stimulus dollars promised per capita. It also ranked last in spending the federal highway stimulus money it had been allotted.What Charlie should have done is just be straight with Republican voters. Something like, "I realize that the stimulus bill was unpopular, but my job at the time was to be the governor of Florida. It is my responsibility to make sure that schools stay open and keep police officers on the street. Managing the federal budget is the president's responsibility. As governor, I did what was in the best interest of the state and pushed for a bill that would benefit the people of Florida. I don't like debt anymore than any other Republican, but I make no apologies for doing everything I could to protect Floridians and avoid a budget crisis of our own."
I checked on the updated figures, and they're not much better. In terms of federal stimulus funds awarded per capita, Florida now ranks 49th out of 50 states, barely beating Pennsylvania. And as far as spending federal highway and bridge money, the state has climbed up to 35th place--a modest improvement, but hardly something to crow about. For someone who calls himself a "pragmatic conservative" and claims he was merely trying make the best of a stimulus package that was rammed down his throat, he didn't exactly deliver.
Instead, Charlie chose to lie and his actions are reinforcing this idea among conservatives that moderate Republicans are willing to say and do anything to get elected and that their moderate political views are actually compromises intended to make themselves more attractive candidates. That might well be true, in Charlie's case, but rather than defending an unpopular position and recasting it as an effort to protect Floridians, he tried to lie to a base that already didn't trust him and abandoned the political centrism that endeared him to independents and Democrats. Sorry Charlie, this lie was fail!
No comments:
Post a Comment