Former Florida governor Charlie Crist, who left the Republican Party in 2010 after a failed senatorial run against Marco Rubio, officially crossed over to the other side while attending a White House Christmas party last night. “Proud and honored to join the Democratic Party in the home of President @BarackObama!” he tweeted, along with the photo of his signed registration form. “I’ve had friends for years tell me, ‘You know Charlie, you’re a Democrat and you don’t know it,’” Crist told the Tampa Bay Times. The switch, while widely expected, was still reportedly enough to earn an official fist bump from President Obama, who Crist endorsed this year.
The Florida GOP sniffed that, “Charlie Crist has the ability to meld into any character — from ‘Chain Gang Charlie’ [his nickname as attorney general] to sympathetic ‘Man of the People’ — there is seemingly no role that he can’t play.” Right now, observers are thinking that the United States’ newest Democrat is preparing to take on the role of current Republican governor Rick Scott’s 2014 challenger. Of course, if Crist enters that race, he’ll have some other Democratic hopefuls to contend with — along with some pesky rumors of drunk golf-carting.
