Florida Governor Charlie Crist has made up his mind. He's going with John McCain. Folks, this is a big one. All the candidates down here sought it but only one got it. In a very tight race, something like this could really make the difference. Watch the endorsement and big hug here and read below from the very popular political blog called The Swamp."
In a surprise announcement with major implications for the Republican primary, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist threw his weight behind Sen. John McCain for president at the Pinnelas County Lincoln Day Dinner here calling him "a true American hero."
"I think the world of him," Crist said.
"We have to think about, when it comes to Tuesday, who you're going to vote for and who you're going to support," he said, adding that he had thought long and hard about his decision. "I don't think anybody would do better than the man who stands next to me."
McCain and Crist embraced at the podium as the audience stood and applauded before McCain gave a spirited thanks.
The McCain campaign had no idea earlier today that Crist was going to make an endorsement. They had previously arranged for Crist to introduce McCain at the dinner. But Crist arrived early at the hotel and told McCain this evening that he planned to publicly offer his support.
Crist is a popular Republican and a plum get in the race for endorsements. All the candidates had worked long and hard to woo him. But McCain had campaigned for Crist over the years and the two had become friends, one campaign adviser said.
Crist, a former state legislator and attorney general who rose to prominence with his own hard-line stances -- he was known as "Chain Gang Charlie'' during his days as a state senator for his insistence that prison inmates in Florida work while behind bars -- does not bring any personal political machinery to the McCain campaign. But he brings a popular name.
It is Crist who appears in person on television ads filling the TV screens of Floridians on the eve of Tuesday's primary with his pitch for a constitutional amendment, Amendment One, limiting property taxes. And it is Crist who built a name here as a pro-consumer attorney general suing corporations that could lend to McCain's image as the maverick to support.
Besides Crist, Sen. Mel Martinez signed on with McCain and all three Cuban American congressmen from South Florida are backing him.