First Charlie says he wants to get rid of paperless voting machines, potentially restoring confidence in the integrity of Florida's voting process to skeptics like me.
Then Charlie says he's going to restore the voting rights of felons who have fully "paid their debt" to society.
Now, at a RALLY AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING (my poor abused mind is still trying to wrap itself around that one), Charlie announces that he has legal staff looking at the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Jim Morrison, who was appealing his conviction in Florida for indecent exposure at the time of his death.
Gov. Charlie Crist said he was seriously considering pardoning music icon Jim Morrison's 1970 indecent exposure and profanity convictions stemming from a Miami concert the year before.
"He died when he was 27. That's really a kid, when you think about it, and obviously he was having some challenges," Crist said Monday, after attending a rally against global warming with rock star Sheryl Crow. "There's some dispute about how solid the case was."
Morrison's arrest generated a lot of attention at the time and is still a part of the Morrison legend. He was drunk at the concert and police said he exposed himself, which Morrison denied.
Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek said Tuesday that he never saw Morrison expose himself and none of the more than 100 photos entered into evidence showed Morrison's genitals.
"He taunted the audience. 'I'm going to show you! I'm going to show it to you!' Then he took his shirt off, held it in front of him like a bullfighter's cape, wiggled it around as if there was something going on behind it," Manzarek said.
Morrison appealed the convictions, but was found dead in a Paris bathtub before it could be heard.
"Trying to clear his name and then he dies. If you have a heart pounding in your chest, that has to tug at you a little bit. It should," Crist said. "To have that much talent and to have it sucked out, even if there was some self-involvement ... that's very sad and very tragic."
Crist is the man who ran to the other end of the state during the last moments of the gubernatorial campaign to avoid being seen with George W. Bush, which now no longer looks so much like a political stunt as it does a metaphor for his political worldview.
Salon reports that Crist has a 73% approval rating in Florida. Me? I'm leaning against the wall in the corner, arms crossed, watching with interest to see what Charlie will do next.
Rock and roll, Charlie. Rock and roll.
4-20 edit: I discovered tonight that a friend attended the Crow concert and heard Crist speak. She reported he is indeed passionate about doing something about global climate change.
