Charlie Crist moves closer to 2014 comeback bid

By Alexander Burns

Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has lined up a fundraising chief for what increasingly seems like an inevitable gubernatorial comeback bid in 2014, Democratic sources told Politico.

While Crist has not yet officially decided to challenge Republican Gov. Rick Scott, Democrats said that he has consulted with former Obama fundraising official Jessica Clark about heading up a finance operation and that she is expected to do so in the likely event that Crist runs.

Fundraising would be one of the most important challenges for Crist in a race against Scott, who has already raised huge sums for his political committee and spent over $70 million of his own fortune in 2010 to win his office in the first place.

Clark is a veteran of the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns, and was finance director for the president’s reelection bid in Florida last year. She did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The conversations between Clark and Florida’s party-switching former governor are one of many indications that Crist aims to pick up high-level Democratic talent in his first campaign with a “D” next to his name.

And Crist has been putting in time to prove his new Democratic bona fides: just this week, he headlined a fundraiser with former President Bill Clinton to benefit Terry McAuliffe’s campaign for governor of Virginia.

(From Politico)