Florida GOP trashes, blames and bashes their once-golden governor, Charlie Crist

Almost overnight, the Florida Republican Party has gone from being Charlie Crist's PR machine to Charlie Crist's archenemy.

Since the lifelong Republican announced last week he was running for the U.S. Senate as a nonpartisan candidate, the Florida GOP has been singularly focused on attacking Gov. Crist, casting him as a phony, a traitor who all but destroyed the state party. The era of Crist and his handpicked former chairman Jim Greer, the party suggests, was a dark and dismal period for the GOP.

"Charlie Crist deserted the Republican Party he ruined by giving his corrupt friend Jim Greer free reign (sic) over Party spending,'' says a new website, www.CantTrustCharlie.com, unveiled by the party Tuesday. "Charlie Crist created this mess, and now he's running from it. Charlie Crist can't be trusted. You can help us defeat Charlie Crist. You can help us rebuild the Party he tried to destroy!"

The harsh tone underscores not only the bitterness party officials feel toward their former standard-bearer, but their worry about his nonpartisan bid's potential.

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The level of vitriol is stunning given the goodwill Crist enjoyed among party activists for more than two decades, serving as a state senator, education commissioner, attorney general and governor. Now the governor who made it on John McCain's vice presidential short list is a pariah.

"I think it's sad. I think it indicates part of the problem that we have in politics today — this constant bickering and attacking,'' Crist said of the harsh attacks Tuesday while flying over the Gulf of Mexico to survey the oil spill. "I think it sickens the people, and we need to do better than that and rise above it."

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"The last thing the Senate needs is another politician who has to take a poll to make a decision," Bush said. "With Marco, what you see is what you get. … And most of all, you can trust that his principles will not change every time the political winds shift direction."

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In contrast, Rubio said one thing to a bilingual group of reporters in West Miami and something different to a Washington website where one regular columnist asked recently, ``What's Wrong With Racial Profiling Anyway?''

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Rubio's attempt to have it both ways recalls his close ties to Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, a chief proponent of the ``English-only'' movement and an early Rubio supporter who has helped him raise hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Wonder what DeMint would have thought of Rubio's opening remarks to the predominantly Cuban-American crowd in West Miami.

``I have a statement I'd like to make in English,'' Rubio said, ``but if you'll permit me for a moment to start in Spanish because we have a lot of people here who would understand it just a little bit better and it's important to me.''

With the 2010 Florida legislative session complete, Gov. Charlie Crist has a desk full of bills and an influential legislator in charge of the Republican Party that's analyzing his every move.

Although state Sen. John Thrasher, the state Republican chairman, acknowledged he has turned the political pressure up in recent days, he said the tactic is to waylay Crist's U.S. Senate run, not force any legislative moves from him as governor.

After Crist left the GOP to run for U.S. Senate as an independent last week, the state Republicans tried to auction off a painting of him and launched a website, canttrustcharlie.com, asking viewers to help rebuild the "party he tried to destroy."

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Suddenly, the same man who was the toast of the GOP and even on the party's vice-presidential short list is a pariah. And those who used to praise him — even some who owe their political career to Crist — are portraying him as the enemy.

Nowhere was that clearer last week than on eBay, where new GOP Chairman John Thrasher orchestrated a publicity stunt to auction off a portrait of Crist that was hanging in party headquarters.
Party staffers who used to serve and promote Crist were suddenly describing their former boss as a man with "fabricated conservative values" and no conviction.
They seemed eager to portray the $7,500 portrait as wasteful excess.
But here's the thing: The portrait's not new. The party bought it last year. And yet apparently it wasn't wasteful excess until now.

The same thing has happened with former party boss Jim Greer.
All of the sudden, it's fashionable for Republicans to bash their former leader, portraying him as an unethical nincompoop.

But Greer has always been a nincompoop.
Many of us said so back when he was spending wild amounts of money and accusing the president of trying to indoctrinate schoolchildren.
But back then, many Republicans were having none of it. Greer was their guy … until he wasn't.

Some of this may be predictable. Political relationships are often paper-thin.

But in Crist's case, the rush to condemn has been so sweeping that even the guys whose careers Crist made — Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp and his handpicked U.S. senator, George LeMieux — have sided with the opposition.

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The Mason-Dixon poll released Thursday found Crist receiving 38 percent of the vote, compared to 32 percent for the likely Republican nominee, former House Speaker Marco Rubio, and 19 percent for the leading Democratic contender, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami. Eleven percent are undecided.

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