Obama surrogate, Charlie Crist, making the rounds

Former Gov. Charlie Crist is making the rounds as a Barack Obama surrogate and today released the following statement that adopts the talking points of the Romney campaign. Crist, who campaign last weekend for the president in Ohio, chided the Romney/Ryan economic plan as having a double standard. Here's the statement as released by the Democratic National Committee:

“Let’s call the Romney-Ryan economic plan what it is – a so-called five-point plan that is really a one-point plan: one set of rules for them and their friends and another set of rules for everyone else – the same bad ideas that created the crisis in the first place.

NAACP launches national ‘felony disenfranchisement’ protest at Fla. Capitol

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People came to the Florida Capitol on Tuesday to launch a national campaign against policies that withhold voting rights from millions of people who have a felony conviction on their record.

With national NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous and Golden Globe-winning actor Charles Dutton headlining, the group tried to shine a spotlight on the the issue of "felony disenfranchisement."

“Voting is a right,” said Jealous, speaking from the steps of the Old Capitol in Tallahassee. “In this state, the governor has decided to turn back the clock.”

In Florida, people who have been convicted of felonies must wait five to seven years after completing their sentences to apply for restoration of civil rights, including the right to vote. The process can take several additional years to work through the system, and the number of applications processed per year has fallen precipitously in recent years.

Last year, Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet ended the policy of automatically restoring rights to released felons, a policy started under former Gov. Charlie Crist. Most states automatically restore the right to vote to felons who have served their prison time.

Under Crist, more than 150,000 ex-felons had their rights restored. Under Scott, less than 300 people have had their rights restored. More than 1.5 million ex-felons in Florida are disenfranchised, giving the state one of the highest rates in the nation.

PPP and WaPo polls: Nelson expanding lead over Mack

Two Democrat-leaning polls, Public Policy Polling and the Wasington Post, are out with new polls today showing U.S. Bill Nelson widening the margin against Congressman Connie Mack IV. Just as the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times poll of last week showed, Mack's odds of unseating the incumbent Democrat are slipping away.

Download PPP_Release_FL_925

From the Washington Post:

Hype-doubting Dem pollster: Alex Sink (31%) and Charlie Crist (29%) are likely tied in '14 gov. race

A new poll showing former Republican governor Charlie Crist utterly destroying former state CFO Alex Sink, a Democrat, in the 2014 Democratic primary is at best an outlier.

That's according to a cursory glance of the results from a nearly unknown polling outfit that hails from Crist's hometown, St. Petersburg, and other surveys concerning Crist that have far different results.

Bottom line, the basic methodology of the survey released yesterday from St. Pete Polls has a major oddity: It has no undecided voters in a theoretical race two years away while everyone's focused on the current presidential and (to a lesser degree) Senate races. With zero undecided votes, the poll showed Crist earning a whopping 61 percent of the vote in a Democratic primary with Sink earning just 25 percent. A handful of lesser-known candidates, including only-announced candidate Nan Rich, were in the single digits.

Undecideds: 0

"There's no one undecided? Well, we've now made history: two years before an election before nearly all the candidates have really declared, everyone knows who they'll vote for," said Tom Eldon, pollster SEA Polling & Strategic Design, who has surveyed for Democrats and trial lawyers since 1996 in Florida. Along with a Republican-leaning pollster, Eldon used to conduct surveys for The Miami Herald.

Eldon was hired last month by the Democratic firm EDGE Communications to survey 600 registered Democrats to gauge their interest in the race. It found Crist and Sink basically tied, with Sink earning 31 percent and Crist 29 percent of the vote. A handful of other candidates were in the double digits. Undecided: 26 percent.

That's still great news for Crist (who's still an independent after leaving the GOP) and not-so-good news for longtime-Democrat Sink, whose 2010 loss to GOP Gov. Rick Scott rankles some Democrats to the core so much that the party is willing to seriously consider a former Republican as their nominee.

Charlie Crist: the DNC speaker from Florida who isn't a D. Yet.

The biggest Florida speaker at the Democratic National Convention wasn’t a Democrat.

Yet.

After former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist’s speech Thursday night, it’s only a matter of time before he officially joins the party’s ranks in a slow march to running for governor in two years.

Crist’s high-profile role pained many Florida delegates, but it furthered President Obama’s message – that the Republican  Party is too extreme.

“As a former lifelong Republican, it pains me to tell you that today's Republicans—and their standard-bearers, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan—just aren't up to the task,” Crist said. “They're beholden to “my way or the highway” bullies, indebted to billionaires who bankroll ads and allergic to the very idea of compromise.”

Crist’s speech was as much a condemnation of today’s Republican Party as it was an explanation of why he’s officially moving toward the Democratic Party and away from the conservative positions he once espoused.

Republicans and many Democrats alike won’t let Crist forget he campaigned for years as a pro-life, anti-gay marriage, gun-touting “Reagan Republican” and “Jeb Bush Republican.” In 2010, in his unsuccessful Senate bid, he bashed Obama’s agenda and ran as a “true conservative.”

“Is he here, and in this for his principles?” asked Democratic delegate Bob Hartnett of Orlando. “I’ve got a long time to think about that. But there are many others in this party qualified to lead and be onstage representing our people.”

Florida Dems' dilemma: Sink with the rank-and-file, Crist with the money men

An image that speaks volumes about the potential looming Democratic gubernatorial primary between Alex Sink and Charlie Crist: Last night Sink and hubbie Bill McBride sat in the arena with Florida delegates watching the speakers.

Crist, meanwhile, was shmoozing in the luxury suites with the Democratic big wigs. We hear he also hung out at the Ritz for awhile with Kirk Wager, Florida Finance Chairman of the Crist campaign (who says he merely bumped into him at the bar, though "I do like him). Today CNN's Peter Hamby chatted with the former Republican as he left a DNC national finance committee meeting.

The former governor has steered clear of the delegates and party activists in Charlotte. Most of them show little enthusiasm for Crist, who generally show little enthusiasm for his running for governor, let alone getting a speaking gig on the final night of the convention. No, the enthusiasm for Crist mostly comes from the Obama campaign.

Crist's speech to DNC is set for 8 p.m. hour

Love him. Hate him. But tune in during the 8 O'clock hour of the DNC to see Charlie Crist deliver his speech.

Crist comes between Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and U.S. Sen. John Kerry. Here's the schedule

-- Alex Leary

Video lookback: Charlie Crist's complicated relationship with President Obama, the stimulus and the GOP

Former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist takes the stage tonight at the Democratic National Convention where he'll be showcased as a person whose party left him as it lurched to the "extreme" right.

It's true that Crist tried to govern from the center, however he only left the party when he faced the prospect of losing a Republican GOP Senate race against Marco Rubio. He then went on to lose in the general election in 2010.

The killer: Crist's support for the stimulus. Not only did the bailout prove unpopular, Crist had an inconsistent relationship with it and with Obama. Crist sometimes championed the stimulus, other times he bashed it. Sometimes it depended on the week, or which reporter he spoke with.

Below is a video of Crist explaining his waffling over the stimulus and a stimulus-bashing ad he later produced that was today unearthed by the Republican Party of Florida, which boosted Crist and is now tearing him down. Also below are two videos of the day before he left the GOP, when he refused to say he was doing so.

 

 

 

Crist's last day as a Republican, Pt 1

 

 

 

 

Crist's last days as a Republican, Pt 2

Sorry, Charlie? Kendrick Meek (gov. candidate in 14?) won't tamp down talk of a rematch.

Former Congressman Kendrick Meek is no Charlie Crist fan.

When the former governor decided to run for Senate, he ultimately left the Republican Party but stayed in the race, all but ensuring a win for Marco Rubio in 2010. That helped syphon votes from the Democrat in the race, Miami Congressman Kendrick Meek.

Crist allies leaked word that Meek was being pressured by top Democrats like Bill Clinton to leave the race. That hurt even more.

Now Crist is on the precipice of running for governor again, in 2014, as a Democrat. And Meek might want a little payback.

Sure, President Obama's campaign is giddy over Crist because he's scheduled to speak at the Democratic National Convention to drive home the idea that the GOP is too extreme. But Florida Democrats aren't pleased. Among them: Meek.

When asked what he thought of Crist at the convention, Meek smiled and essentially refused to comment.

"I'm not in charge," he said. "I'm going to go get my credentials (for the convention)."

When asked if he'd run for governor against Crist, he smiled: "I'm going to get my credentials."

That would be bad news for Crist, who has goodwill among African-American voters and the teachers union. So does Meek. He's the son of black-community icon and former Congresswoman Carrie Meek. And he repeatedly took on former Republican Gov. Jeb Bush over education initiatives that Crist backed and that the union opposed.

FL Poll: Bill Nelson lead's growing in 'strangest race,' but Charlie Crist getting less popular

From Public Policy Polling, a firm that typically surveys for Democrats:

The Florida Senate race is one of the strangest in the country this year. Bill Nelson has middling approval numbers, with only 35% of voters approving of him to 42% who disapprove. Usually an incumbent in that kind of position would be doomed for defeat. And yet Nelson has a 7 point lead over Connie Mack IV, 45-38, representing a 5 point increase in his lead compared to our last poll in late July.

The reason Nelson's ahead despite being unpopular is that Mack is even more unpopular. Only 27% of voters have a favorable opinion of him to 45% with an unfavorable one. Just 17% of independents have a positive opinion of Mack to 48% with a negative one, and much of Nelson's lead comes thanks to a 45-29 advantage with that group.

This campaign kind of represents the new norm in electoral politics- millions have been spent bashing the heck out of both candidates, so voters dislike both of them and are kind of just choosing the lesser of two evils. For now that's Nelson.

Other notes from Florida:

-Charlie Crist isn't a particularly popular figure in Florida anymore. After his endorsement of President Obama only 36% of voters in the state now have a positive opinion of him to 44% with a negative one. He's lost most of his remaining appeal to Republican voters- he was at 34/49 with them a month ago and now he's dropped a net 21 points to 24/60. Democrats still appear to be somewhat skeptical of him as well though- 44% rate him positively to 33% with a negative opinion.