Waxing the Back
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (left) calls former state House Speaker Marco Rubio a 'fraud' for portraying himself as a fiscal conservative while actually spending $130 for a haircut - or a back wax.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist called former state House Speaker Marco Rubio a “fraud” Monday night for portraying himself as a fiscal conservative while paying for a “$130 haircut, or maybe it was a back wax.”
Crist went after Rubio, who is leading the governor in the GOP primary race for the Senate, over reports that the former speaker used a credit card paid by the Republican Party of Florida for personal expenses.
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“He’s trying to pawn himself off as a fiscal conservative, ” Crist told Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. “And yet just in recent weeks, two weeks ago, it has come out in news accounts he had a Republican Party of Florida credit card that he charged $130 haircut, or maybe it was a back wax — we are not sure what all he got at that place.”
Asked where he came up with the suggestion that Rubio got his back waxed on the state party’s dime, Crist said, “I don't know what it was. Initially we were told it was a haircut. And then he said it wasn't a haircut. Then he had the gall to go on Neil Cavuto's show and said it was his money. It was a credit card from the Republican Party. It was party donors' money.”
“The detachment from reality is stunning to me. And to try to say that you're a fiscal conservative, yet you spend $130 for maybe a haircut and maybe other things, I don't know what you do at a salon when you are a guy, ” the governor added. “I get my haircut for $11 from a guy named Carl the barber in St. Petersburg, Florida where I grew up. And to me that's real fiscal conservatism.”
Since the story broke, Rubio has said that he paid back the state GOP for all personal expenses incurred using the credit card. Rubio has also accused Crist of leaking the story and charged the governor with using dirty tactics.
Still, Crist accused Rubio of “perpetrating a fraud on people is by saying one thing and actually doing another.”
“He paid it back after he got caught, ” Crist went on. “That's like saying I'm going to go and steal something, and if you don't catch me I'll never pay back, but if you catch me I'll go ahead pay it back.”
In response to the interview, Rubio spokesman Alex Burgos said, “Last night, Charlie Crist gave an 11-minute nationally televised interview in which he made multiple references to back waxing, but not a single mention of fighting the liberal Obama agenda. This speaks volumes about what his priorities are….
“Charlie Crist is a desperate politician whose record of supporting the failed $787 billion stimulus, bailouts and tax increases is being rejected by Floridians with every passing day, ” Burgos said. “Today, Charlie Crist is the sitting governor of the fourth-largest state who has fallen so far and so fast that he’s now reduced himself to making up stories about his opponent’s grooming habits.”
