Crist and Crow get behind global warming...hugs and smiles.

GAINESVILLE - With "STOP GLOBAL WARMING" bracelets dangling from his wrist, Gov. Charlie Crist took his seat between the two women who would soon embrace him in a hug before a row of television cameras: rock star and environmental activist Sheryl Crow and Laurie David, producer of the Al Gore documentary on global warming.
This seat might rank near the bottom on the comfort scale for a Republican governor of Florida - even one who is a fan of Crow's hit song "Soak up the Sun."

Crist, however, feels at home.

"It's not a Democrat or Republican issue," he told a news conference at the University of Florida for the "Stop Global Warming" college tour. "It's a right or wrong issue and this is what's right to do."

Crist is the first governor in the South and one of a handful of Republicans nationally to so publicly get behind the issue of global warming - an issue the Republican presidential administration denied existed until recently, and to which Crist's predecessor, Jeb Bush, paid little attention.

It certainly positions him well in the mainstream of American politics but it could hurt him in the short run," said Lance DeHaven Smith, a political scientist at Florida State University. "We have a very conservative right wing of the Republican Party in Florida and, up until now, that's really dominated policies."