If anyone currently has to hold a relationship to support their political ambitions, there is no better example at current than Florida governor and possible GOP vice presidential running mate Charlie Crist.
The over-tanned and lanky Crist's private life has been full of rumors and speculation since 2006 when he was running for Governor. Rumors of homosexual trysts were as common as womanizing reports.
In either case, I could care. But the Florida media wants you to know Charlie is engaging in a heterosexual lifestyle. More below the fold.
Last night I was cruising through local news on my Blackberry when I saw the Tampa Bay cable news network Bay News 9 put up a headline stating that Crist was engaged. The first thing that went through my mind was "Hi, my name is General Pander T. Base, and I'd like to announce my candidacy for Heterosexuality"
But I suppose yesterday was a slow news day, or perhaps political columnist and Bay News 9 political analyst/personality Adam C. Smith was contacted with the news and asked to spread it big time... Because when I looked at the cover of the St. Petersburg Times this morning, in a bold headline was the news that Crist had popped the question. I can't provide a scanned copy here but I can provide the appropriate response to this news: who gives a shit?
This is political pandering -- that's it. Hell, this isn't even worthy of a diary but I am bringing it up because the response by these local media outlets is just absurd. Locally, we make bigger deals about athletes than we do about politicians in most cases but we don't follow their private lives or ever date Vincent Lecavalier has or every woman Scott Kazmir has ever seen would be in the news.
Of course, me writing a diary about this non-news is playing into the political game that is being played in the mainstream media... But for what it's worth, the most obvious thing I can take from this news is Crist is attempting to solidify himself for a VP nomination -- or perhaps to posture for Mel Martinez Senate seat come 2010. I'll leave it at that.