2008 Vice-Presidential Thread

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and on a more morbid and openly and admittedly paranoid note,

i wonder when we're going to start finding the bodies of many of Crist's former tricks and boyfriends after having "committed suicide."

it happens, lots, in FL.
 
Irvine511 said:
i am so excited for this.

though, when one looks at it all logically, Crist is by far the best VP for McCain.
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he is not a "Dick Cheney"

and is at the top of the list of reasonable minded Governors in the GOP group.

If he gets the nod.

The GOP ticket, will be, I think by your appraisal, the best of a their lot?
 
deep said:
2861U2

Who do you think would be a good pick?
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My top choice is Romney. He would be good, as would Palin, Hutchison, Pawlenty, and maybe Jindal. I don't think McCain needs Crist. He'll win Florida and most (if not all) of the south no matter what. Crist isn't that exciting, and McCain desperately needs to bring an exciting person onto the ticket. I don't see how a ticket with two boring gray-haired guys would beat Obama.
 
2861U2 said:
Among conservatives he is. As we saw in the primary, he can bring in huge crowds and huge amounts of money, and will make conservatives a lot more excited about the ticket.
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And he still managed to lose, with all of that included, to the guy who had much less money.

Maybe he's exciting to you, but he was unsuccessful. Once Giuliani dropped out, he was the favorite. McCain kind of came out of nowhere to win it. I think Romney massively underachieved.

McCain is still a better candidate for President, the right choice was made.
 
phillyfan26 said:
Maybe he's exciting to you, but he was unsuccessful.
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Just because you didn't win the nomination doesn't make you unsuccessful. Many nominees have picked primary opponents as running mates. Romney would have won if only conservatives voted in the primary, but the open primary resulted in McCain winning. And yes, Romney certainly would bring in money and excitement to the ticket, and also gain frontrunner status for the nomination in 2012.


phillyfan26 said:
McCain is still a better candidate for President, the right choice was made.
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I don't disagree that McCain was the most electable of the bunch, but Romney is far and away his best VP selection, IMO.
 
Strongbow said:
Didn't you tell me that one reason Crist would not be selected was because he was gay?:wink:
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he is gay. this reconfirms that fact.

she's a beard.

happens all the time.

he hasn't been selected, and i wonder if the Republicans will take such a risk despite his "marriage."
 
Irvine511 said:
he is gay. this reconfirms that fact.

she's a beard.

happens all the time.

he hasn't been selected, and i wonder if the Republicans will take such a risk despite his "marriage."
Click to expand...


I think it will depend on how strong they feel they are going to be in Florida this year.
 
2861U2 said:
Among conservatives he is. As we saw in the primary, he can bring in huge crowds and huge amounts of money, and will make conservatives a lot more excited about the ticket.
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how well do you think Romney will play among the evangelical base?
 
[q]
The Talk of the Green Iguana
Will American voters elect the first gay vice president in November?
By Bob Norman
published: February 28, 2008


The rumors about Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and the Green Iguana just wouldn't go away.

The story goes that the Florida governor frequented the Green Iguana, a bar in Tampa, back in the early 1990s when he was just starting his political career. He was less careful back then, people say, and during his partying at the Green Iguana, he was openly gay.

When I got Rick Calderoni, the bar's well-known owner, on the phone, I expected him to stonewall me about it.

He didn't.

Calderoni, who is gay, confirmed that Crist came into his bar quite often and that the two of them became friends.

Getting to the point, I asked him if he knew Crist to be gay.

"Yes," he answered bluntly. "I just wish he would come out and admit it. That would be a great thing if he did."

I asked Calderoni if he was certain that Crist is gay. He told me that Crist socialized with a gay clique of friends but conceded that he'd never actually seen Crist become intimate with another man.

So how can he be sure Crist is gay?

"The way he acted," Calderoni said.

How did he act?

Calderoni laughed and said, "Very feminine."

The Green Iguana owner then told me that he knew someone who could provide me more information and that he would have him call me. The call never came.

It wasn't proof. Just more circumstantial evidence that Florida's Republican governor is gay, a prevalent rumor in Tallahassee for years.

The topic may soon, however, get some national play. After helping to deliver Florida in the GOP primary, Crist is widely believed to be on the short list to become John McCain's nominee for vice president.

If he were to be chosen, imagine how interesting this presidential election would be. Not only would the American people be asked to vote for the first black president or female commander in chief, but, at least in terms of subtext, also the first gay vice president.

Are they ready for it? Do they even care?

Most voters will tell you they don't, that they couldn't care less about anyone's sexuality. Of course, they aren't telling the truth. Human nature demands that they at least be curious. But, absent a Jim McGreevy-/Mark Foley-/Larry Craig-type scandal, I don't think the issue would change an election. If anything, the buzz would only bring more intrigue to the candidate and possibly add to his support. Being boring is a lot bigger political sin than having sexual secrets in your closet. Americans knew full well that Bill Clinton was a poonhound before they elected him, didn't they?

Most Floridians had probably at least heard the rumors about Crist before they elected him governor. During the election, I reported about two male GOP staffers' boasts of having had affairs with Crist when he was running for governor in 2006. The stories burned across the internet and got a bit of play in the mainstream press. Crist won in a landslide anyway. Republicans homophobic? Not in Florida.

If McCain chooses Crist, it would be interesting to see how the voracious national press (as opposed to cautious Florida newspapers) would handle the issue. Would the New York Times put a small team of reporters on the story in an effort to dig up the truth?

I think so. Just last week, a writer with a major national magazine called me on the topic. He said he was doing a general piece about the recent spate of Republican outings and scandals, but the V.P. talk surely has given a bit of urgency to the project.

Finding the truth when it comes to Crist, though, is a slippery endeavor. For years, opposing candidates and private investigators have dug into the matter and found scintillating evidence. Just no proof.

My own efforts, as the Calderoni interview shows, have gone the same way. I began looking into the matter about 16 months ago, when a tipster in Fort Lauderdale told me that a young Republican aide had boasted to him at a dinner party that he was having an affair with Crist, who was then Florida's attorney general.

The tipster, who is gay, said he came forward because he found it terribly hypocritical that Crist opposed gay marriage and adoption by gay couples. Not to mention the whole pesky "living a lie" thing. I agreed, and before long, I had found numerous sources who said that GOP insiders Jason Wetherington and Bruce Carlton Jordan had boasted to them about romances with Crist.

Wetherington, who served as a regional director for Katherine Harris' U.S. Senate campaign and as a legislative aide for state Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, denied that he'd had an affair with Crist (though, after I started asking questions, he was taken under the wing of Hollywood lawyer Todd Payne and moved to Georgia until the election was over. Payne, a real estate attorney, wouldn't comment).

Jordan's story runs a bit deeper. A member of the pioneering Crum family in Central Florida's Sumter County, he's a longtime Tallahassee political operator, a childhood friend of Harris', and a convicted felon. His most recent political title was executive director of the Florida Funeral Home Directors Association. It was in that capacity that he snagged Crist as a fill-in guest speaker for a convention after then-Gov. Jeb Bush suddenly canceled an event in 2003.

Two years later, Jordan was fired after it was discovered he'd stolen thousands of dollars from the association for personal vacations. He was also convicted of two theft-related felonies.

After his arrest, he went to his old friend Harris and asked if she needed a hand for her U.S. Senate campaign. She quickly hired him as her personal travel aide.

Then Jordan began telling other campaign workers about having a long-term romantic relationship with Crist, who was then running for governor. Among those he told was campaign pilot Jay Vass, who has worked for numerous GOP officials, including Jeb Bush, Tom Gallagher, and Crist himself.

What Jordan didn't know was that Vass was friends with Gallagher, who at the time was running against Crist in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Vass and his girlfriend, Dee Dee Hall, gave Gallagher sworn statements about Jordan's detailed admissions. Hall even sat down for a videotaped deposition, which I obtained, in which she said that Jordan had told her that Crist was undergoing counseling because he was so conflicted about the relationship.

Since reporting the stories, I have spoken with an ex-boyfriend of Jordan's, who said he too had heard of the affair. He told me that even before the affair allegedly began, Jordan boasted of his friendship with Crist. The ex-boyfriend, who traveled in Tallahassee political circles, said Jordan and Crist may have been introduced by a mutual friend named Jennifer Faga, a wealthy socialite from the Hamptons who owned land in Florida and who lived for a time in Tallahassee.

He said that Faga and Jordan both had crushes on Crist and that Jordan apparently won out. I contacted Faga on the phone and asked if she knew Crist.

"I'm going to say 'no comment' because I don't know what you're calling about," she said.

Then I asked her if she introduced Jordan to Crist.

"No comment," she said before hanging up.

Jordan's ex-boyfriend led me to a Florida lobbyist who he said knew more about Jordan's alleged affair with Crist. I called the lobbyist, who commented on the condition of anonymity. He said that Jordan was dating Crist through much of 2006. He said that Jordan shared details with him about what they did together and where they met (at Jordan's rented carriage house in Tallahassee's Southwood development).

He said he was with Jordan on several occasions when Crist would allegedly call. Jordan would tell him "It's Charlie" and then run off to meet him.

But the lobbyist never actually saw Jordan together with Crist. He said that, while he assumed his friend was telling the truth, he couldn't be sure. Jordan, he added, boasted about a lot of things he sometimes couldn't back up, and he turned out to be a thief.

Jordan, for all his blabbing, has been publicly silent on the issue. On both occasions that I reached him, the last time being last week, he quickly hung up on me. When I called Crist about Jordan and Wetherington before the election, he denied not only that he was gay but that he even remembered meeting either man.

So what does it all add up to? Well, one thing that is certain is that Jordan and Wetherington ran in rarefied Republican circles and told numerous people, in some detail, that they'd had romantic relationships with Crist.

I find it hard to believe that both of them were lying about it, but it's possible. Could be that Calderoni was mistaken about Crist as well. Maybe his gaydar was off. Weirder things have happened.

Oh, well. Nobody cares anyway, right?
[/q]
 
That article is not real convincing.
It will be enough for some.

I know a lot of straights that have spent a lot of time in gay bars and even that have gay friends in their circle.

They are more open-minded, than most 'conservatives'.


Good chance there are some that may 'gossip' about my orientation.
Being I am in Crist' age bracket and not married.
I have never participated in, or had any interest in gay 'intimacies'.

My orientation is 'heterosexual'.

There are pictures of me in public with gay people.
One could launch a whispering campaign against me. :shrug:
 
2861U2 said:
Just because you didn't win the nomination doesn't make you unsuccessful.
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His goal was to win the nomination for president. He was the frontrunner. And he didn't get it. That's absolutely unsuccessful.
 
phillyfan26 said:
His goal was to win the nomination for president. He was the frontrunner. And he didn't get it. That's absolutely unsuccessful.
Click to expand...

I disagree that he was the frontrunner. I don't think Romney was the frontrunner at any point. By the time it became clear that Giuliani's strategy wouldn't work, McCain had taken the lead.
 
2861U2 said:
I think he'll be fine. I don't see how his Mormonism would be a factor at all.
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considering how some on this forum view Mormanism as a false religion, it would surprise me if that wasn't a widely held viewpoint across much of the evangelical world.
 
deep said:
That article is not real convincing.
Click to expand...




here's some more for you ...

[q]
Crist Denies Trysts
GOP frontrunner: I have never had sex with a man
By Bob Norman
published: October 19, 2006


The GOP staffer, 21-year-old Jason Wetherington, told friends at separate social functions in August that he had sex with Crist, according to two credible and independent sources who heard Wetherington make the claim first-hand.

Wetherington, who recently worked as a field director for U.S. Senate candidate Katherine Harris and currently works for state representative Ellyn Bodganoff's reelection campaign, also named a man whom he said is Crist's long-term partner, a convicted thief named Bruce Carlton Jordan who also recently worked for Harris in her long-shot Senate bid.

Jordan made headlines recently when the Miami Herald learned that the felon was working as Harris's travel aide. The newspaper noted that Jordan, 42, was reported to be close friends with Charlie Crist, whom he convinced to attend an annual Florida Funeral Directors Association meeting in 2003.

Jordan was charged in 2003 with stealing thousands of dollars from two organizations for whom he worked, including the Tallahassee-based Florida Funeral Directors Association, where he served as executive director. He completed a 60-day jail sentence in February and will be on probation until the year 2011, according to state records.

When the Herald questioned Crist about Jordan this past August, the frontrunner in the governor's race told the newspaper that he doesn't remember the man. "I don't know who Bruce Jordan is," he said at the time. "It doesn't mean I haven't met him. I don't know who you are speaking about."

I asked Crist during a phone interview on Monday morning if he had ever had sex with Jordan.

"No," he said. "I don't recall the name."

That Crist doesn't remember Jordan seemed incredible to me. Not only did the attorney general make a special appearance at the funeral directors' conference, but former presidents of the association say Jordan was known to be pals with Crist. Attempts to reach Jordan weren't successful, but his father told me that Crist and his son are friends.

"He talks about [Crist], but I don't think he's seen Charlie in a while," said Albert Jordan, who lives in Inverness, where he and his wife raised their son.

When asked if his son and Crist had a sexual relationship, the father simply said, "Not as far as I know."

I recounted some of those facts with Crist.

"I'm not saying I haven't met him, I probably have," he said. "I just can't picture him, that's all."

I also asked him about Wetherington's claim to sources that he'd had sex with Crist. "That's ridiculous," he said. "Completely false."

Then I asked him if he'd ever in his life had sex with a man.

"Never," he said.

While there is no proof that what Wetherington has said is true, it's clear that he said it. I first learned about his claims after receiving an anonymous e-mail on October 6. The e-mail was linked to a 2003 story of mine reporting that now-disgraced congressman Mark Foley was gay.

"Why don't you do the same story for another hugely visible FL politician running for office? Call if you want a starting point."

Immediately I knew the e-mailer was referring to Crist. For years, it has been rumored that Crist, the favorite to move into the governor's mansion after the November 7 election, is gay.

I was interested in pursuing the lead mainly because I've come to believe that any closeted politician in the Republican Party — which openly woos homophobes into its ranks while opposing gay rights — is fair game for the media.

Crist, for his part, has been moderate on those issues and supports civil unions. "I'm a live and let live kind of guy," he told me.

But the Palm Beach Post reported on Friday that Crist can be heard in recently recorded phone calls targeting voters saying, "I support a constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriages, and I oppose adoption by gay couples."

I asked him about that, and he said he's always held those positions. I asked him if he thought it was fair for reporters to ask him about his own sexuality. "Of course it's fair," he said. "It just happens to be wrong."

Many people aren't convinced that Crist is telling the truth. I am one of them, especially after reporting this column. The source behind the e-mail, who asked that I not reveal his name for fear of retribution, is a gay man, a registered Independent voter and former Republican who isn't involved in Democratic Party politics. He was motivated to tell his story, he says, by his outrage at the Foley scandal.

He recounted a dinner party of four people at a friend's posh waterfront home in Las Olas Isles. He didn't remember the exact date but it took place in early August. He was there with his friend, his friend's partner, and Wetherington.

His friend had struck up a sexual relationship with Wetherington after meeting him in an AOL chat room. Wetherington spoke at the party about working for Katherine Harris's campaign. To me, this was significant since Harris is a stalwart of the Religious Right and openly denounces homosexuality. Wetherington even took a call from Harris after they sat down for cocktails before dinner. "He was like Harris's gay valet," the source said.

As they sipped their drinks, Jason started talking about his relationship with Crist, which he said had been sexual in nature.

"Charlie Crist? Are you kidding?" the source remembers asking.

They asked Jason about the size of Crist's anatomy. Jason "wouldn't go there," said the source. "He said that he remains friendly with Crist and that he was expecting an appointment when Crist becomes governor."

The source said that after the dinner he struggled for a few weeks with what he'd heard. When the Foley scandal hit the news, he called ABC News, which had broken the congressional page story. He said the network had no interest in the story.

Then he contacted me. I learned that Wetherington, a dark-haired and good-looking former page in the state senate, had been Harris's southeast field director and had left the campaign after the primary to work for Bogdanoff.

Wetherington had also appeared in numerous Sun-Sentinel articles. From them, I learned he was an alum of Fort Lauderdale High School, where he was the student body's vice president and the student advisor to the Broward County School Board.

On August 11, 2002, the newspaper published a feature story about Wetherington under the headline: "Leader by example: The school board's student advisor is a take-charge guy with lofty ideals and goals."

In it, Wetherington was very open about his ambition, telling the newspaper, "I'll make it to Washington, whether in the Senate or the White House." His mother said she was certain she would someday be a "First Mom."

The article also mentioned his role as a leader at First Baptist Church in Fort Lauderdale. The huge 12,000-member church is one of the more anti-gay institutions in the county and has been aligned with the ultra-conservative Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church and its rabidly right-wing minister, D. James Kennedy.

Wetherington appeared to be living a seriously twisted double life. On the one hand, he was a young Christian Republican leader and on the other a cruiser of men in AOL chat rooms.

Two weeks ago, I dropped by Wetherington's apartment complex off Sunrise Boulevard near the Intracoastal. As it happened, he was in his car in the parking lot, about to drive away.

I asked him to roll down his window, introduced myself, and told him what I was doing there. Wetherington confirmed he was gay. I told him what I had learned about the dinner party, which he admitted attending. But he denied that he had ever had sex with Crist.

"The only way I would have said that was if I was really drunk," he told me, adding that he didn't "remember anything" about the party.

I told him that the source told me that they had asked him about Crist's anatomy. Wetherington became more adamant about this detail than anything else during the impromptu interview. He asserted several times that he had never spoken about Crist's anatomy.

I assured him that the source had told me the same thing.

He said that he had met Crist on at least three different occasions, including at his church and at Crist's Republican primary debate with Tom Gallagher in West Palm Beach, but the extent of his contact with the Attorney General was "shaking his hand."

Did he already have a job locked up with the administration if Crist wins the election?

"I sent him a resume," he said. "I want to work for him, but I never said that I had a job with the administration."

I told Wetherington that it must be tough navigating his two conflicting worlds.

"It has been a personal struggle," he told me. "But I have my mother and I have the church "

Wetherington went on to say that he had come out to the church and that his activity there had decreased significantly because of it. He said he needed to go but wanted me to call him so we could meet for a standard interview. He never returned my phone calls.

A week later, I received another e-mail from another source who created the Yahoo name of "EveryOne KnowsAboutCC" to contact me. I spoke with the new source and he told an extremely similar story about Wetherington, only he'd heard it at a different party that took place in Broward County this past August.

This source, unlike the first, has known Wetherington for years. Again, the source supplied his identity — which is known in some local political circles — but asked that I not reveal it publicly.

The source was credible and possessed knowledge that only a confidante of Wetherington's could possibly have. He said he contacted me because he had learned that I had interviewed Wetherington.

"I am very conflicted about talking yet at the same time with the whole Foley thing, you can imagine how I must feel," he said. " Jason is a very nice kid, but as a gay person, we struggle very hard and, to have somebody [Crist] who sucks up to a party that badmouths us and works against us, is very two-faced."

He said Wetherington told him and several other people at a party that he had sex with the politician in a hotel room in the Tampa-Sarasota area while he was working on the Harris campaign. He said Wetherington recounted that he spoke with Crist about a campaign matter and "one thing led to another and they had sex."

"No birthmarks, moles, or such," said the source. "He also said that it happened on more than one occasion."

The new source also told me, like the first, that the young aide boasted that he was in line for an appointment to Crist's administration after he won the governor's race.

And he said that Wetherington named Crist's long-term partner: Bruce Carlton Jordan. The source said he had no idea who Jordan was, but had jotted the name down so he would remember it.

Both the sources are obviously telling the truth about Wetherington. That means that Wetherington, one of the most promising young Republican staffers in Florida, either had a sexual relationship with Crist or was lying about it.

There's no proof, just the ring of truth. Crist, meanwhile, is clearly in denial mode as indicated by his hollow claim that he doesn't remember Jordan. He tries to write the issue off as pre-election politics.

"It's the silly season," he said.

Maybe, but I don't think this issue is going away anytime soon.
[/q]




make of it what you will.

but this article alone should be enough to kill Crist dead as a VP no matter who he marries.

i have mixed feelings on Crist. it's shameful that he's switched positions on several issues (not just off-shore oil drilling, but he now supports an anti-marriage equality amendment and now, unforgivably, supports the FL ban on gay adoption ... he is for civil unions, however) and gone so far as to marry a woman in order to make himself a plausible VP candidate.

so, on one hand, no one can know his inner turmoil. and despite his willingness to whore his positions over to GOP dogma, generally speaking, Crist is certainly one of the more moderate, rational GOP politicians.

but, hey, he is a Republican. these are the people who've made hating gay the centerpiece of their social policy and attempted to single them out for discrimination in the Constitution of all places. so, sorry Charlie, not too much sympathy.

so there you have it.

and i've "known" about Crist -- insofar as DC gay gossip can be trusted -- for a while. all i'll say is that the rumors were right about Foley and Craig, and they seem to be spot-on for Scott McClelland and Richard Clarke.
 
Might be, I'm not that much into American political history. :)

Though, another debatable question: Did W. Bush really do not pick another runner?
 
2861U2 said:
Ok. Does that mean you think no party nominee should ever pick a primary opponent as running mate?
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No. It means I think no party nominee should pick an opponent who came up very short. Which means I think McCain shouldn't pick Romney and I think Obama shouldn't pick Clinton. There are other reasons not to pick both of them, but I think the fact that Romney and Clinton both came up short is a big factor.

I think there were months of time after Giuliani was out that Romney was favored in.
 
Vincent Vega said:
Though, another debatable question: Did W. Bush really do not pick another runner?
Click to expand...

Cheney was not seeking the nomination or running for any office at the time.

He was getting filthy rich on taxpayers money, running Haliburtion.


Cheney picked himself to be W's running mate. > true story.
 
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