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The Villages
Friday, March 29, 2024

Big guns Bill Clinton, Chris Christie come into Florida firing in gubernatorial race

With all polls showing the race close as it enters its final days, Gov. Rick Scott and former Gov. Charlie Crist brought out the big guns on Sunday in an attempt to break the logjam.

Fresh off a swing through Iowa on Saturday, Gov. Chris Christie, R-NJ, hit the campaign trail for Scott on Sunday, attending church services together in Miami and Pembroke Pines before hitting a rally in Plantation. Christie, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association (RGA) and a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016, took off the gloves and went after Crist on Sunday.

“There’re two different types of folks who run for public office,” Christie said in Plantation. “There are the kind of people who run for public office to do something and there’re the kind of folks who run for public office to be something.

“This race in Florida is the best example of that contrast,” Christie added. “Rick Scott ran for governor because he wanted to do something to help all the families of Florida who were suffering. All Charlie Crist wants is another title. Let’s give him a title: loser on November 4.”

Scott and Christie hit Boca Raton for a Republican Jewish Coalition event on Sunday afternoon before wrapping up the day in Palm Beach.

Democrats countered with U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), who fired away on the Republican governors for opposing raising the minimum wage and hitting them on other issues.

“Christie and Scott have a lot in common — they are both ethically challenged governors, have been poor stewards of their states’ economies and have refused efforts to raise the minimum wage, which would lift millions of hard-working Americans out of poverty,” the DNC insisted in an email sent out to the press Sunday.

Christie will continue campaigning with Scott on Monday, attending get-out-the-vote rallies in Wellington, Melbourne and Ormond Brach before heading up to Connecticut.

But Crist had a big-name Democrat of his own. Former President Bill Clinton appeared with Democrat Crist in Tampa on Sunday afternoon, before which he attended a rally across-state in Palm Beach Gardens with U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Fla., who is being challenged by Republican former state Rep. Carl Domino. He then headed to Tallahassee to help Gwen Graham, the Democrat challenging U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla. Clinton made Crist the last stop in his day.

Scott’s camp ignored the former president and attempted to link Crist to another Clinton: former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Matt Moon, a spokesman for Scott’s campaign, pointed to comments Hillary Clinton made last week in which she said that only businesses and corporations created jobs.

“Charlie Crist’s affinity for Hillary Clinton’s policies of higher taxes, more debt and more government are well known,” Moon emailed the media on Sunday. “But it now appears that when it comes to jobs, both of them are completely clueless.”
Moon took a shot at Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions and Crist encouraging her to run in 2016.
“Only someone who lost 832,000 jobs as governor would think that someone who thinks that businesses don’t create jobs would be a ‘great president,’” Moon wrote. “The question remains: does Charlie Crist agree that businesses don’t create jobs? Unfortunately for Floridians, the answer is probably yes.”

Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN

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