Politics

Charlie Crist Sued

interns Contributor
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Florida’s former RINO Governor Charlie Crist, who shed his Republican disguise in April to seek a U.S. Senate seat as an independent, has shaken both sides of the money tree to great effect. But it’s not clear now if he’ll get away with it. A Florida Republican legislator and attorney in Naples is suing Crist in an attempt to get Crist to, as we phrase it in the South, do right.

When Crist filed for the Senate seat in the spring of 2009 as a Republican he was the prohibitive favorite to win the seat and the establishment Republican money rolled in, much of it from out of state. The Republican National Senatorial Committee, Senator John Cornyn of Texas commander in chief, endorsed Crist and had a hefty check in the mail almost before Crist had descended the podium he used to announce his candidacy.

Crist collected in the neighborhood of $10 million from Republicans before he left the Republican Party in April rather than face sure defeat at the hands of conservative former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio in the Republican primary. Now Crist is hauling in money from establishment Democratic donors who don’t think either of the Democrats in the Senate race have much of a chance in November (they don’t) and said donors would rather have the squishy Crist in the Senate rather than the principled conservative Rubio. Oddly, federal election law does not prohibit a de facto Democratic candidate from running for office on Republican money. The suit, filed in Florida Circuit Court in Collier County, claims Florida law does and that Republicans who contributed to Crist have been damaged.

Full story: The American Spectator : Charlie Crist Sued