Charlie Crist will be at a book signing at Books-A- Million in Fort Myers on Monday night.
The stop marks an interesting anniversary for Crist.
Five years ago to the day, Crist made a stop in Fort Myers that ended his career as a Republican.
On February 10, 2009, Crist introduced President Barack Obama at a rally.
He was lending bipartisan support to the president’s stimulus plan in this speech. He told a crowd of mostly Obama-supporters that as a governor of a state looking down the barrel of a plummeting economy, the president’s plan was badly needed.
“To be candid, it’s getting harder every day,” he said in his introduction. “It’s getting harder every day and we know that it’s important that we pass the stimulus package.”
It was a controversial speech. At the time, it was GOP strategy to not support anything the president proposed.
So, as a Republican governor, Crist had broken a lot of rules. But, to make things worse, Crist hugged the president during that speech.
Photos of that hug haunted his failed Senate run and lost him support among most Republicans.
While the political dynamic between the GOP and the president hasn’t exactly changed, other things have. Crist is now a Democrat running for governor of Florida, again.
In his newly released book, Crist wrote, “I didn’t know it yet. But that high-spirited day in Fort Myers—meeting Obama (bad enough) and greeting him with a hug (even worse)—ended my viable life as a Republican politician. I would never have a future in my old party again.”
In August, Crist is will face off against former state senator Nan Rich for the Democratic nomination for this year’s gubernatorial election.
You can watch that rally here.
