Charlie Crist - The Partys Over: How the Extreme Right Hijacked the GOP and I Became a Democrat

T hank you! I called out to the massive crowd in front of me. What an incredible night! Optimism is in the air.

I was deep inside enemy territory. Thats what my old friends were telling me. It was Thursday, September 6, 2012, a couple of minutes after 8:30 P.M. , and I had never stood before a throng so huge: more than twenty thousand men and women, a loud and raucous mix of anticipation and fun, in the TV glare of the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolinaevery age, race, region, and hat style you could imagine. Most of them were jammed onto tiny folding chairs. Others were crowding the narrow aisles. As I peered over the top of an oversize, wooden podium, I could see hundredswas it thousands?of white-on-blue Obama-Biden posters and many, many pole signs. MINNESOTA. TENNESSEE. I found FLORIDA off to my right. Halfway back in my home-state delegation, one poster said I-4 Obama, a little play on the highway that connects Tampa and Daytona Beach, always a crucial swing-vote corridor. But as I moved through my opening pleasantries, I have to say, the applause sounded a little tepid to me.

I got the distinct feeling that the audience was holding back. It was as if all these people were taking a careful measure of me, trying to decide whether Id fully earned the right to be here.

Were they happy to see me? Were they asking themselves, Who the hell is this guy? Who invited him? I hadnt seen any polling data or focus group reports. But Id been around this business long enough to know: People with rsums like mine werent supposed to speak at Democratic National Conventions. This wasnt the way that game was played.

Id been the low-tax, pro-life, pro-gun Republican governor of Florida. As a young state senator, Id been such an anti-crime crusader, people called me Chain Gang Charlieand I considered it a compliment. Heck, Id named my boat Freedom. Was that Republicanor what? Id risen through the ranks from education commissioner to attorney general to governor, always running with an R next to my name. In the 2008 presidential campaign, Id worked diligently for John McCain, even making his short list for vice president. At various points along the way, I had referred to myself as a Ronald Reagan Republican.

And here I was with a prime-time, Thursday-night speaking role at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, preparing to sing the praises of Barack Hussein Obama. Thats how many of my old party mates liked referring to him, as if he werent just a president from a different party but a highly suspect, otherworldly creature and probably a Muslim too.

No, this wasnt politics as usual.

I was addressing this Democratic crowd the same night the president was. My slot was after Caroline Kennedy and just before John Kerry and Joe Biden. The big addresses from Michelle and Barack Obama were coming right after that. Youd have to look long and hard in the annals of American politics to find a fish more out of water than I was that night.

Id even joked with my wife, Carole, when I first got the call from Jim Messina, who was managing the presidents reelection campaign: Didnt anyone do a background check?

I wasnt even invited when Republican delegates gathered August 27 to 30 for their national convention in Tampa, just a short drive from my rented condo in St. Petersburg. Why would I be? I wasnt one of theirs anymore. They were brimming with Tea Party fervor and anti-Obama zeal. Im pretty sure they wouldnt have enjoyed what I had to say.

What an honor to be here with you to stand with President Barack Obama, I told the Democratic crowd.

A small fan was whirring at my feet. I always like a fan at the podium when I give a big speech. You have no idea how hot those TV lights can be. But I could still feel tiny beads of sweat forming on my forehead. I dont usually get nervous giving speeches. My heart was pumping now.

Before I got to the business at hand, I wanted to address the elephant in the room. Never before, I thought, had that old expression been quite so apt.

Half a century ago, I began, Ronald Reagan, the man whose optimism inspired me to enter politics, famously said that he didnt leave the Democratic Party, but the party left him. Well, listen, I can relate. I didnt leave the Republican Party. It left me.

It had been a while, I was sure, since Ronald Reagan was quoted so approvingly at a Democratic convention. Then again, I added, my friend Jeb Bush recently noted Reagan himself would have been too moderate, too reasonable for todays GOP.

People clapped at that. Right there, I could feel it. I had the attention and the support of the room. We might have come from different places. But I could telland they could tellwe were talking the same language and talking the same way. It had taken me a while to get here, but I felt thoroughly at home.

I had already changed my registration from Republican to Independent. By the time the year was over, I would officially be a Democrat. But despite those changing labels, I felt the same way I always had. I had the same basic values. Id never been an ideologue. It was just that, in an ugly bow to extremism, the party Id grown up in had abandoned people like me. And the place I was heading, I was happy to see, wasnt run by enforcers with mandatory checklists.