Tough Times for Charlie Crist

The bloom is off for Florida Governor Charlie Crist.

When the nation's Republican governors meet in Miami on Wednesday after their party's second crushing national loss in a row, it won't be déjà vu for Gov. Charlie Crist.

In 2006, when the GOP governors gathered in Miami, Crist was dubbed a ''rock star'' at the meeting. He was one of only three non-incumbent Republicans to win governor races in a nation that started leaning Democratic.

This time, the Republican Governors Association meeting comes on the heels of John McCain losing in Crist's state, a Republican must-win, on Election Day.

And the number of real jobs lost is troubling Crist even more. Florida lost 115,000 jobs -- the most in the nation -- in the past year on Crist's watch. The state budget is hemorrhaging money. And Crist's strong poll numbers have slipped slightly in recent months.

His problem seems to be that he's not a right-wing fire-breather, which makes him suspect to the True Believers. He goes through the motions, but his heart isn't apparently in it, and he's ticked off a lot of people for worrying more about the state of Florida than the prospects of the national ticket.

How dare he.