In the "you have to laugh" department today Charlie Crist compared himself to Reagan on CBS' Early Show.

“If I'm a RINO, then so is Ronald Reagan. I'm [a] less taxing, less spending, less government, more freedom kind of guy and I just take a pragmatic common sense approach to government. And if that's not what the people want, they'll let me know. But I'm confident that it is,” he told "Early Show" co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez.

The American people "don't want bickering and some ideologue on one end or another to sort of be a standard bearer," he said.

So many things that are stupidly wrong with this statement. First of all how can he say he's a "less taxing, less spending, less government, more freedom kind of guy" when he endorsed Obama's stimulus sham that only served to grow the size of government, the deficit, and the debt? And where does he think the bowmaster in chief is going to get the money to pay for all of it if not increased taxes?

Reagan WAS AN IDEOLOGUE. He was also very pragmatic because he had to be. He faced a legislature dominated by the Democrat opposition. Reagan always made his conservative case to the American people who in turn pressured their representatives to support his measures. Anybody that knows anything about Reagan knows that among his biggest regrets was not being able to reduce the debt and deficits by getting rid of wasteful domestic spending. He had to compromise those things in order to solve the more burning issues, like cutting taxes, building up the military again. Charlie says he's pragmatic but what does he stand for?

Crist had a chance to make a mark as governor when MARCO RUBIO proposed eliminating property taxes on residences in Florida. It was a certainly a big idea that would have corrected many of the problems in how our state collects its revenues. Charlie had a friendly house of representatives and he could have used his popularity at the time to try to influence the senate. But instead he chose to be "pragmatic" and supported a VERY WEAK bill that does nothing to solve the long term problems of property taxation in Florida and only perpetuates the inequities of the current scheme. So we should call Governor Crist "kick the can down the road Charlie" because of his propensity to accept band-aids and half measures and pass huge problems along to future generations.

Ronald Reagan had a vision. Charlie has ambition.

Oh and by the way, Charlie, GOP voters in Florida (the ones that will be determining your future in politics) do want an ideologue. They want someone who will inspire when inspiration is called for and that will bicker when bickering is called for. The House Republicans in mid 90s bickered their way into creating budget surpluses by forcing Bill Clinton's hand. Remember, back when "the era of big government was over"?

Folks, please donate to Marco Rubio's campaign.