You may have heard by now that, in response to very long lines at Florida early voting locations, Governor Charlie Crist has extended the hours they can be open, calling it a personal decision and publicly acknowledging that the move might hurt McCain.

A few weeks ago, in a television segment on early voting, I saw that in Florida the voting laws had been restructured by the state Republican Party in 2006 to curtail significantly the hours voting locations could be open.  It was something ridiculous, like 6 8 hours a day on weekdays and 8 hours total for the whole weekend.  As a result, this year people were being forced to wait in line for hours in the heat.

In any case, this reaffirms what a good guy Crist is.  Over the course of the campaign he’s been using his head rather than his GOP-issued ideology to aid in his decision making.  And, according to Wikipedia, he’s the kind of conservative I can appreciate:

Crist’s platform as a gubernatorial candidate included a “pro-life and pro-family” approach to abortion.^[13][14]; $3,000 subsidies to adoptive parents and $5,000 subsidies to foster parents; advocation of parent choice and strict, standardized testing in education; prescription drug tracking for assurance of safety and proper health care; less expensive homeowners insurance; report cards for insurance companies; abolition of citizens insurance; support for right to die including respect for living wills…and support for environmental protections such as a ban on off shore oil drilling near Florida’s coastline.

Of course I’ve left out some of the bits in the middle that make Crist a Republican, but I think the fact remains, that Crist is no Palin Republican.  Not to mention that when asked a few weeks ago if Palin would attract independents to the Republican ticket, Crist said something like “I think we both know the answer to that.”