Charlie Crist Aggressively Goes After Rick Scott
WEST PALM BEACH -- Charlie Crist didn't hold anything back Monday, delivering an aggressive denunciation of Gov. Rick Scott personally and politically, depicting him as an ethically suspect chief executive who doles out favors to big campaign contributors and doesn't understand or care about the lives and needs of average Floridians.
"Governor Scott has led like this: embrace the ideological fringe, take care of his friends, bully his opponents, hide from the public and the press, and run from tough issues," said Crist, a former governor who's seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Scott in November.
"It shouldn't come as a surprise," Crist said, running through what he sees as transgressions by the Republican governor. "He's already run ads that independent fact-checkers are calling misleading and false. But what does Rick Scott do? He keeps on running them because the truth means little to Rick Scott."
Crist delivered the broadside before nearly 700 people gathered for a luncheon at the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches, a bipartisan group that attracts movers and shakers from the political, legal and business worlds in Palm Beach County. He received polite, but not extensive applause; at the end, less than half the audience stood to clap.
Besides the tone, Crist's speech was unusual in that he put on his glasses and read a prepared text for the first two-thirds of the 23-minute speech. It's only the second time since Crist announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor on Nov. 4 that he's read his remarks, something he said later he did because he had a lot to say about Scott and wanted to make sure he got it all correct.
Another unusual feature: The Scott campaign dispatched Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera to sit in the audience so he'd be on hand to offer an immediate rebuttal to reporters.
Lopez-Cantera said he was there because people "deserve to hear the truth.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/14/charlie-crist-rick-scott_n_5149092.html
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