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Crist Does Phoner For McCain

Posted Oct 21, 2008 by William March

Updated Oct 21, 2008 at 04:15 PM

Gov. Charlie Crist, who’s been accused of being less than enthusiastic about his support of John McCain for president, just did a news conference call about McCain’s tax proposals as part of McCain’s “Joe the Plumber” economic campaign theme.

Crist didn’t address the questions about the fervor with which he’s been campaigning for McCain, but has denied in the past the suggestion that he’s not trying all that hard.

Asked about how he feels about the negative tone of the campaign, including McCain allies questioning the patriotism of their opponents, Crist responded, ““I like to talk about John McCain. I’m a huge McCain fan, I think he’s a great man, a true American hero – there’s so much virtuous to talk about Sen. McCain, that’s how I spend most of my time.”

But he said it’s also legitimate to “contrast and compare” in a campaign, and that he thinks tax policy and leadership experience are the best areas to contrast.

Crist also played down the question of voter fraud, which has been a major GOP campaign theme: “We worry about everything but I don’t think that we anticipate much of a problem with voter fraud. We don’t anticipate that it will be a significant problem, hopefully not a problem at all in Florida.”

In attempting to portray the ACORN community action group as a threat to the elections process, and to link the group to Obama, national Republican Party and McCain campaign officials have said Florida faces significant problems from voter fraud.