The Wall Street Journal pans Charlie Crist's cronyism:
Democrats have embarrassed themselves by naming political buddies to replace Joe Biden and Barack Obama in the Senate, and now a Republican is showing he can do the same. On Friday, Florida Governor Charlie Crist picked a long-time aide and political consultant to fill his state's soon-to-be-vacant U.S. Senate seat, presumably as a placeholder until Mr. Crist can win the job himself in November 2010. The Florida vacancy is due to the strange decision by Republican Mel Martinez to abandon his post early for no other reason than that he seems sick of the job. His departure couldn't come at a worst time given that Republicans have only 40 seats and need every one of them to stop the most radical expansion of government in two generations. That makes it all the more puzzling that Mr. Crist bypassed well known Republicans in favor of selecting his former campaign manager and chief of staff George LeMieux. The 40-year-old Mr. LeMieux ran Mr. Crist's campaign for governor in 2006 and is famous for saying about Mr. Crist that "we make decisions together," adding that "he's the senior partner and I'm the junior partner." He quickly said he has no plans to run for Senate in his own right and has declared that "the Charlie Crist way" is "the way we need to address things in Washington."