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Obama Joined By Crist To Plug Stimulus Plan

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By WILLIAM MARCH

wmarch@tampatrib.com

Published: February 11, 2009

FORT MYERS - With an unlikely ally at his side - Republican Gov. Charlie Crist - Barack Obama made his first Florida appearance as president Tuesday to push his economic stimulus plan, the first major legislative test of his administration.

"We have inherited an economic crisis as deep and as dire as any since the Great Depression," he told a cheering crowd packed into Fort Myers' Harborside Event Center.

"If we don't act immediately, then millions more jobs will disappear, and national unemployment rates will approach double digits. More people will lose their homes and their health care."

That, he said, would lead to "a crisis that ... is going to be that much tougher to reverse."

While Obama was speaking, he announced the news, welcome to his audience, that the Senate had passed the bill.

Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, appearing with Obama, noted that it differs from the bill passed in the House in ways significant to Florida. The Senate version, she said, contains substantially less state aid, a cut that would affect large states including Florida disproportionately.

She said Florida would also suffer disproportionately from the reduced education spending in the Senate bill.

Crist, who unlike many Republicans supports the bill, introduced Obama at the event.

In an ironic moment, Crist, who was a key supporter of John McCain in last year's presidential race, had to wait to begin speaking while the crowd chanted "Yes We Can," Obama's campaign slogan.

Crist told the crowd his siding with Obama on the bill "is about helping our country; this is not about partisan politics. We are rising above that."

Obama responded with "special thanks" to Crist for his backing.

Governors, he said, "understand our economic crisis in a way that maybe sometimes folks a little bit more removed don't understand. ... They know what it means to balance a budget when revenues are short and more and more people are asking for help.

"When the town is burning, you don't check party labels," he said. "Everybody needs to grab a hose."

Emphasizing his split with his party on the issue, Crist was the only Republican Obama introduced, besides Fort Myers Mayor Jim Humphrey.

Fort Myers Republican Rep. Connie Mack didn't attend the event, but nine of Florida's 10 Florida Democratic House members rode with Obama to the town on Air Force One, and appeared at the event.

Just before the Obama event began, Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., held a conference call with reporters to outline his reasons for opposing the bill.

Asked about the difference with Crist, a political ally, he said Crist is "facing the problems that governors face - balance the budget, do the things he must do for the people of Florida - and you have a lifeline from the federal government. Any port in a storm."

However, Martinez said he's focused on "national economic policy, making a judgment of what is overall best for the nation's economy."

Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, an early Obama supporter and longtime friend of Crist, said that the show of bipartisanship will produce political benefits for both.

"They both personify the kind of politics the American people are looking for in a dire economic crisis," he said. "I think the public will reward them for it."

The event still had some partisan tinges, including a heavily Democratic crowd that cheered as they would at a political rally.

Repeating the digs he offered in his news conference Monday against the previous, Republican administration and Congress, Obama said, "We can't afford to posture and bicker and resort to the same failed ideas that got us into this mess in the first place.

"That's what the election was about," he said. "You rejected those ideas because you know they haven't worked."

In addition to Fort Myers, Obama visited Elkhart, Ind., Monday and goes to Peoria, Ill., today to push for the stimulus bill. The three cities were chosen because of their economic woes.

Fort Myers has suffered sharp unemployment increases, reaching nearly 10 percent last year. The Cape Coral-Fort Myers area had the nation's highest foreclosure rate for 2008, about six times the national average and double the Florida average, said Daren Blomquist of RealtyTrac. More than 12 percent of housing units in the area got a foreclosure-related notice last year.

One attendee, sign-maker David Casali, 42, of North Fort Myers, said he and his girlfriend have been out of work more than a year. Her family's costume business, founded by her grandfather, closed.

"You try to get a job at McDonald's or somewhere just to keep food on the table, and they tell you there are 100 applicants for every position," he said. "Every friend I have, the conversation is, 'Did you find a job yet? Are they evicting you?'"

Taking about a dozen questions from crowd members after the event, Obama heard stories of economic hardship: a homeless woman who said she had been living in her car with her children, and a college student who said he's been working in a fast food restaurant for four years, trying to move up to a better job.

Fort Myers and Southwest Florida are also a Republican bastion, so Obama was taking his at-times partisan message to a stronghold of the political opposition.

The crowd at the event, however, was clearly Obama fans. About 1,700 tickets were given out, 40 percent reserved for VIPs and 60 percent available on a first-come, first-served basis to the general public, with no screening, said deputy White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

Reporter William March can be reached at (813) 259-7761 or wmarch@tampatrib.com.

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