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Democrats welcome Former Governor Charlie Crist

By William March of the Tribune staff

Former Gov. Charlie Crist continued playing coy about his potential candidacy for governor despite a rock-star welcome at a Pasco County Democratic Party lunch Saturday. But he told news reporters he is nearing a decision and feeling encouraged. "I don't have a specific timeline," Crist said. "As each day passes you get closer to a decision. The more encouragement you get, and the more listening you do, the more encouraged I am." Crist has been acting as if he were running, attending one Democratic event after another. On Friday night, he was a guest at an Urban League dinner in St. Petersburg; last weekend it was the state Democratic Party Jefferson-Jackson fundraising dinner in Hollywood. "He has something every week," said his wife, Carole Crist, who attends most events with him and works crowds with gusto.
About 200 people at $25 a head, a better-than-usual crowd for a Pasco Democratic event, showed up to see Crist. "Pasco's kind of a tough place, but it's changing," Crist told the crowd. "There has been a titanic shift in politics in America ... and it's represented right here." A Republican-leaning county, Pasco went for John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 and also for Republican Gov. Rick Scott in 2010. Republican former Gov. Jeb Bush has declared the county a political weather vane. Crist wooed the crowd with stories from his political history intended to suggest that even when he was a Republican, he took actions in accord with Democratic values: hiring Democrat Jack Shreve as a public advocate on utilities rates; vetoing a controversial 2010 teacher merit pay bill popular among Republicans but considered by Democrats to be an attack on public education; and greeting Obama in Fort Myers and praising his economic stimulus program in 2009. Read more at: TBO-The TampaTribune

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