The Political Whore

The St. Pete Times is reporting that Gov. Crist has asked girlfriend Carole Rome to marry him … and she said yes!

Was the question popped when Crist was visiting John McCain for his weekend barbecue/VP selection retreat in May? No, not the “Charlie asking Carole to be his wife” question. I mean, the “John asking Charlie when the hell he is going to get married and squash all those “The Gov Is Gay” rumors” question.

Call me jaded, but this news has got to mean that Crist has been hovering right at the top of McCain’s Veepstakes list — if only the Gov could be de-gayed a little.

Yes, I’m speculating, and no, I guess I’m not much of a romantic.

Congrats Governor Crist +1. I wish you both nothing but the best.

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Former Tampa Trib newsman Tim Collie has a good piece about Gov. Charlie Crist’s girlfriend, Carole Rome, in this weekend’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

She’s been a fixture on the Manhattan charity circuit and has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the American Red Cross, the March of Dimes, and other charities that help troubled children and the homeless.

She routinely rubs shoulders with celebrities ranging from Tommy Hilfiger, the Hilton family (her former neighbors in the Hamptons), and John McEnroe, whose wife, former rock star Patty Smyth, is a close friend.

It was during a fundraising meeting in New York in September that she and Crist became close. Rome, a mother of two, was in the process of divorcing her husband, Todd Rome, CEO of Bluestar Jets, an international airplane brokerage.

“It was a meeting about fundraising and she’s very interested in fundraising, like I am,” said Crist, who was in the Keys on Friday evening. “She’s a Republican, her father was a Republican. We have a lot in common — sports, politics, fishing. I care about her a great deal. What can I say? It’s a serious, close relationship.”

The best thing about clicking over to the story, however, will be to check out the photo of the Gov and Mrs. Rome with H. Wayne Huizenga, multimillionaire, who definitely hasn’t traded in for a trophy wife

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Now here’s a story that can knock Scott McClellan off the front pages and 24-hour “news” (and I use quotes there to connote that they do not, in fact, convey any news) networks: Charlie Crist is straight!

HuffPo reports that political trickster Roger Stone is peddling a Crist sex tape:

How interested is Florida Governor Charlie Crist in being John McCain’s VP runningmate? So much so that veteran GOP dirty trickster Roger Stone — who coordinated a few dirty stunts in support of Crist during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign — is quietly peddling a so-called “Charlie Crist sex tape.” That’s what Stone called it during a telephone conversation. And no, it is not a tape of Crist having sex with a guy. In fact, it isn’t even X-rated. The video was seemingly staged to kill the rumors that Crist is gay. Stone claims the tape — which he discussed recently with Politics1, but didn’t show to us (”I’m saving it for the national shows”) — “shows Charlie fooling around in a hotel elevator with his girlfriend … They’re making out.”

I’ve not seen the tape either, nor do I really wish to. Crist has consistently and in a straightforward manner denied being gay, and yet stories to the contrary have popped up for years. Like this one from the New Times in South Florida earlier this year:

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.”

And no less a journalism authority than the CW’s “news” show asked the same question a few years back:

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The owner of the Green Iguana in Tampa tells the New Times‘ political writer Bob Norman that Gov. Charlie Crist used to frequent his bar in the 1990s and acted very, well, gay:

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.”

Norman admits this remains circumstantial evidence of Crist’s sexuality.

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