I Predict 2010

Charlie Crist will not run for re-election as governor of Florida. He will run for “Amnesty “ Mel Martinez’s open Senate seat. Here’s why:

With the exception of a state senate seat in the 1980’s he has never run for re-election, he has always moved on elsewhere.

It appears that Florida will balance its budget on the Obama bucks. The Obama bucks will be gone by 2012. Does Charlie want to run for president from Tallahassee having to balance a budget sans help from the Obamessiah?

This convinces me more.

Gov. Charlie Crist is proposing that the state solve much of its budget deficit problem this year and next year with a "front-loaded" gambling compact – in effect a loan – with the Seminole Tribe of Florida.

Under the agreement Crist just announced, but which would need approval by the Legislature, the state would get most of the first four years' worth of its share of Seminole gambling revenue in the next two years, some $1.1 billion.

(snip)

But because of the front-loading arrangement, the agreement would give the state $600 million in the coming budget year, $500 million the following year, nothing in the third year and very little money in the fourth year.

Asked whether it's wise to depend so heavily on gambling revenue and federal stimulus dollars for the next two years, when they won't be available thereafter, Crist responded with characteristic optimism.

"The other thing that is happening, that I believe is already starting to happen, is that we are seeing the, hopefully, beginning of the end of the recession," he said.

So Charlie’s going to balance the budget on Obamabucks and the Seminole bribe (whoops! I mean loan). When the time comes to run for president, all this cash will be gone.

And I predict that Charlie Crist will be safely in D.C. when that happens.

In 1978 I was 19 years old and stationed on Guam. I voted for the first time by absentee ballot. Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ) was on the top of the ticket and I voted for him. I was drunk at the time.

Next year may be the first time in 32 years that I will not vote for the Republican on the top of the ticket. Heck, if Amnesty Mel were running for re-election I might have skipped the top two GOPers.

I know I've threatened this before, but next year may be the year I become a free man.