Charlie Crist isn’t completely evil, after all
You heard me: Charlie Crist, the governor we Floridians love to hate (and hate to love) has taken a major step towards redemption:
Prodded by a supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist ordered Tuesday that early voting hours immediately be expanded statewide through the weekend.
The Republican governor's executive order extends hours at all 267 early voting sites for four hours each weekday, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Friday, and for four hours on the weekend, for a total of 12 hours over Saturday and/or Sunday.
Crist orders extra early voting hours - St. Petersburg Times
Given that early turnout has been significantly in Obama's favor, and extending the hours will benefit folks who can't take off work to vote (ie, not old people), Gov. Crist may have just handed Florida -- and the country -- to Barack Obama on a silver platter.
We could psychoanalyze the governor up one side and down the other to try to figure out his motives (this could be him getting back at McCain for the VP snub, it could be an effort to defeat Amendment 2, it could be about trying to save his own political career, etc etc)... but I'm choosing to believe that Crist did this just because he knew in his heart it was the Right Thing To Do™.
Now he's just gotta dump his beard fiancé and step out of that closet (the one everyone knows about, anyway), and I will officially [heart] Charlie Crist. For now, though, he has certainly earned my respect.