I would add one thing to Holly's post on Charlie Crist yesterday. As she notes, Crist's denials that he ever endorsed President Obama's stimulus package are deeply unconvincing. Today, the St. Petersburg Times's PolitiFact amply documents the many ways Crist has displayed support for the program. The fact-checking crew there delivered a resounding "Pants on Fire" verdict.

But let's assume for a moment that Crist's pants aren't on fire. Let's accept his comment to CNN on Wednesday that "I understood [the bill] was going to pass, and I wanted to be able to utilize it for the benefit of my fellow Floridians." Well, if that was the case, he hasn't done a very good job. As The Miami Herald reported back in August, Florida ranked last among the states for federal stimulus dollars promised per capita. It also ranked last in spending the federal highway stimulus money it had been allotted.

I checked on the updated figures, and they're not much better. In terms of federal stimulus funds awarded per capita, Florida now ranks 49th out of 50 states, barely beating Pennsylvania. And as far as spending federal highway and bridge money, the state has climbed up to 35th place--a modest improvement, but hardly something to crow about. For someone who calls himself a "pragmatic conservative" and claims he was merely trying make the best of a stimulus package that was rammed down his throat, he didn't exactly deliver.

To be fair, I checked with Don Winstead, Crist's special adviser on the recovery act. He explained Florida's abysmal slot in the rankings this way. The bulk of the stimulus money has come in the areas of education, transportation, and energy. In all three, he says, Florida is at a disadvantage because of factors beyond its control. It gets less education money because its population skews older, it gets less transportation money because of what he considers unfair funding formulas, and it gets less energy money because of the state's moderate climate, which doesn't generate as much weatherization and heating needs. As for spending the transportation dollars Florida was awarded, that has been slowed by the fact that the state is pursuing more-ambitious projects that take longer to get going.

All of this is mighty complicated to convey succinctly, though. So count on Crist's opponents, who have bashed him in the past on this issue, to keep at it.