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Crist Tacks Right: They Called Me 'Chain Gang Charlie'
Eric Kleefeld | October 14, 2009, 1:09PM
Gov. Charlie Crist (R-FL) and former state House Speaker Marco Rubio (R)
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Gov. Charlie Crist (R-FL), who is fending off a challenge from the right by former state House Speaker Marco Rubio in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, is busy burnishing his conservative credentials, the Lakeland Ledger reports.
"When I was in the state Senate I was nicknamed 'Chain Gang Charlie,'" said Crist. "It's hard to get right of that."
Crist also boasted that he has been "about as conservative as you can get": "No governor has cut taxes more, no governor has vetoed more pork bills and no governor has spent more time reducing spending."
The single biggest issue that Rubio can use against Crist is the governor's endorsement of President Obama's stimulus bill. Let's see if "Chain Gang Charlie" can fight his way out of it.
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Chris
October 14, 2009 1:27 PM
I thought it was gang-bang Charlie??
Either way, Crist should be pleased that his gay rights march was equally attended as his Tea Bag protest, yet coverage is missing from Fox News.
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salame
October 14, 2009 2:09 PM
I think the "chain gang charlie" is his boy party moniker.
This man is going to Peter Principle his way to the White House. He has
done nothing except work on his tan, perfect his smile and find his beard
for the ultimate political seat in the Oval Office.
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GTFOOH
October 14, 2009 2:41 PM
More like cho cho train Charlie!
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Powkat
October 14, 2009 2:44 PM
Is it just me, or do these two look enough alike to be father and son?
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VivaAmerica!
October 14, 2009 2:53 PM in reply to Powkat
No, it's just that most Republicans have that look.
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mac2151
October 14, 2009 6:15 PM
Noticed that old Chain Gang teamed-up with Ball & Chain Symington. Boning-up on bank & wire fraud?
Or, was it the Mendelshon case?
I. Jerome Hirsch was a partner of Symington. Steven Hirsch is with the law firm of Keker Van Nest that is defending Mendelshon.
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barryashe
October 15, 2009 2:42 AM
Reminds me of the bit between Jack Benny and Sig Ruman in Lubitsch's 1942 comedy masterpiece, "To Be or Not To Be". Benny in disguise as a Nazi sympathizer is buttering up the fatuous Nazi Gestapo chief of Warsaw (Ruman)by telling him the Poles "call him Concentration Camp Erhardt". Erhardt replies, more than once, with obvious self-satisfaction, "So they call me Concentration Camp Erhardt!"
As an aside, this was the innimitable Carole Lombard's final film role as Benny's wife. She was killed in a plane crash while on a war bond drive shortly before the film opened. Her real husband, Clark Gable, never really recovered from the loss.
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