Some Florida Republicans have a weird tendency of writing strange fan-fiction about Charlie Crist. Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam is out with his latest yarn: He thinks Hillary Clinton is already talking to Charlie Crist about being her running mate in 2016.
Putnam was speaking to the Republican Club of the Palm Beaches yesterday touting the idea that GOP policies helped Florida recover form the 2008 economic crisis (which apparently GOP policies did not help create), when his talk took a strange turn.
"If we lose the governor's mansion, we look more like Michigan and Ohio and New York than like Texas and the slide begins where we lose House and Senate and congressional seats. We can't afford to do that. It's all about the mansion," Putnam said according to Post on Politics.
"Hillary Clinton wants a Democrat in the governor's mansion so that the 2016 race is affected by having a top political leader on her team," he went on. "She's probably already blowing in Charlie's ear about being her vice president, because apparently that works."
Crist of course was considered as a possible John McCain running mate back when he was a Republican, but ultimately was passed over in favor of Sarah Palin.
The strange little tale does feed into the narrative that Crist has grand political aspirations and puts his future above Florida's. He did after all give up that job as governor after one term in order to take on his disastrous run for Senate as a Republican ... and then as an Independent after losing in the primary.
Though, according to some political rumors, Hillary Clinton is no big Crist fan. After Crist was disinvited from a Miami Beach fundraiser earlier this month featuring Bill Clinton, gossip started circulating that Hillary was behind the decision. The story goes that Hillary ran into Crist's erstwhile Democratic primary rival Nan Rich, and that Hillary had Crist disinvited as a favor to Rich. (Rich denies this.)
Putnam, meanwhile, almost assuredly has gubernatorial aspirations himself. After stepping down from a high-profile position in the House, he ran for AG with the speculation being that he'd make a run at governor in 2018.
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