Charlie's Always Running; Too Bad He Can't Run Our State

Charlie Crist was born to run. He simply loves to run for office. Unlike most politicians who detest fundraising, Charlie loves to raise money to run for office.

Charlie loves to run so much that when he wins, he can't wait to leave that office and run for the next higher office.

He loves running around the State for photo ops and he loves running for exercise. He loves running to personal appearances at public gatherings where he can charm a crowd with warm homespun cliches about how "Florida is a shining state on a hill" or remind us how he is "the People's Governor."

Unfortunately, the only thing that Charlie doesn't like running is the State of Florida.

As Governor, Charlie hasn't done much, now has he?

Unlike Jeb, who was an agenda setter extraodinare (albeit not a good agenda, but there was never a doubt that it was Jeb's agenda nonetheless), Charlie is at the other end of the leadership spectrum. Charlie has adopted the role of a spectator, or perhaps a cheerleader, but not a leader. By the relaxed way that he acts, if you didn't know better, you'd think that Charlie has already fixed all of the State's problems (and that's why he's looking for another job).

But the last time I checked, we're experiencing a vast number of problems for Charlie to address right now (when he's not dialing for dollars for his Senate campaign).

Charlie, in case you haven't noticed, here is what is happening to our "Shining State on the Hill:"

1. We're still near the bottom of all of the states in the country in education funding and test scores (thank goodness for Mississippi);


2. We have an unemployment crisis, with no relief in sight;


3. One-fourth of Floridians under age 65 have no health insurance;


4. Home foreclosures are at an all time high;


5. Our Republican-controlled state government didn't balance the budget last year and had to rely on more than 4 billion dollars in Federal Stimulus Funds to "balance the budget;"


6. We still have a homeowner's insurance crisis with too much loss exposure being guaranteed by Citizens Insurance Company, while Charlie is driving private insurers out of the state (thank goodness we haven't had any hurricanes during the last three years);


7. More people moved out of Florida last year than moved into the State--for the first time since WWII;


8. Tourism is down;


9. Sales tax revenues are down, documentary stamp tax revenues are down, and intangible tax revenues are down;


10. Property values are down 50%, yet property taxes have not dropped appreciably.

Charlie promised us a lot of things when he was running the last time. Most of all, he promised us that he would be the Governor for an entire 4-year term if he was elected. Yet, two years into his term, he pulled a Sarah Palin, and basically quit to run for Senate. At least Sarah had the decency to give up the State salary while deciding what to do with the rest of her life. Charlie just plays Governor while he draws the Governor's salary and does his campaign fundraising.

Remember the campaign ads that Charlie ran which showed an "empty chair" and criticized his opponent, Jim Davis, for missing votes in Congress while he was running for governor against Charlie? I can't help but think about that empty chair that now sits in Charlie's office in the Governor's mansion. First of all, he's never in the chair--because he's busy running around the state running for Senate. But even when he's physically in Tallahassee, he's also figuratively "not in the chair" because he is AWOL as a Governor and is not proposing ANY solutions for the 10 things listed above that need to be worked on right now. The budget crisis isn't going away, and this year there will be no Stimulus Money to plug the holes.

While Charlie's chair (and his suit) are empty, I'm still waiting for my property taxes and homeowner's insurance premiums to "drop like a rock" as Charlie promised. Unfortunately, my property's value is the only thing that has dropped like a rock under Charlie's "watch."

And worst of all, Charlie is running away from his current job in hopes that he can get elected to the Senate before Floridians wake up and realize how badly he has performed as our Governor. He knows that if he served as Governor for 8 years, there would be no way for him to hide from his dismal record. He's counting on his charm as a retail politician and he's counting on Floridians' general sense of apathy to try to run away to Washington, D.C. before we wake up and realize what hit us.

Can someone give me a reason why we shouldn't be screaming for Charlie to do his present job?

And, for the life of me, I can't understand why we would want to give him a promotion....