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Florida Democratic candidate for governor, Charlie Crist, went there and called out the Republican Party’s racism towards President Obama during an interview on Fusion.
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http://youtu.be/wHNCCXQ7RJ0
The Florida Democratic candidate for governor Charlie Crist explained what drove him out of the Republican Party, “Jeb Bush said it better than I could. They’re perceived as being anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-minority, anti-gay, anti-environment. You know, I just wasn’t comfortable, being honest with myself…”
Host Jorge Ramos said that Crist left the Republican Party, because he was about to lose to Marco Rubio. Crist replied, “I left the Republican Party because the Republican leadership went off the cliff. I mean, they’re so hard right now they won’t cooperate with the president on anything. I mean, it’s very disappointing and very discouraging, but I’m an optimist. It’s going to get better.”
Ramos again pushed Crist, and said the moment you decided to leave the Republican Party, it was because you were going to lose to Marco Rubio. Crist replied by going there, “No, it was because I couldn’t be consistent with myself and my core beliefs, and stay with a party that was so unfriendly towards the African-American president. I’ll just go there. You know, because I was a Republican and saw the activists and what they were doing, it was intolerable to me. As I told you before, my mother and father taught my three sisters and me to treat everybody well. We’re all children of God, and I saw how the party, some of them, were treating the African American president, and I couldn’t take it anymore. That’s a big part of why I left the party.”
Democrats are finally starting to call out the racism that exists in large segments of the Republican Party. Calling out the way that Republicans have treated the president is only going to help Crist politically in Florida, because he is saying something that Democratic voters have known since Obama first became the Democratic nominee in 2008.
Charlie Crist details his slow break up with the Republican Party in his book. He makes it clear that he had seen a shift towards the far right building before he ran for Senate. His mistake was that he underestimated how quickly the Republican Party would move to the far right.
What began with Republicans using race based tactics against the president has morphed into a hardcore racist wing of the GOP. The elements for this kind of racism were always present. George W. Bush’s failed immigration reform was the first sign that there was a well of racism lurking in the GOP.
In the years that have followed, it has become a full blown discrimination assault against women, African-Americans, Hispanics, and gays.
Democrats are needing to say what must be said, because the racist beliefs of some Republicans do not represent the majority of the American people.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
