CRIST LAUNCHES NEW TV MESSAGE TODAY

Although he doesn't seem to have any serious primary challenge from Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher (if you believe the polls which have come out to date), Attorney General Charlie Crist's gubernatorial campaign has launched it's second television advertisment today in several markets.

This time, Crist presents himself as a champion of comsumers who has opposed electric rate increases, recovered reimbursements from price gouging lawsuits after hurricanes, and battled against Medicaid fraud.

The new ad will rotate with Crist's first message on fighting crime and building neighbourhoods which has been running the past two weeks. The ads are not running in the Panhandle or in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach markets.

And while we're on the subject of Crist-Gallagher, Steve Bousquet has an interesting piece in the St. Petersburg Times political blog The Buzz. One of Crist's staple lines in his stump speech goes something like, “Some people are in this race for them. I'm in this race for you.”, being careful not to mention Gallagher by name.

He used the line during a speech Friday night in Clay County, and Bousquet reports:

Within minutes, a Gallagher operative phoned The Buzz, asking if it were true that Crist said “Gallagher was in it for himself.” No, he didn't say that -- but the message obviously reached its intended destination.