Poor Charlie Crist. The governor of Florida is whining (somebody call Phil Gramm!) to the foreign press about his station in life. At the end of an interview with the Financial Times of London, where Charlie and his girlfriend were celebrating their recent engagement, uh, undertaking a trade mission, he threw in this:

Mr Crist would not be drawn on whether he would accept a White House job. Asked if he had been vetted for the vice-presidency, he said: “No. I can’t talk about it. Since [the post] has not been offered I’m prepared to accept being governor of Florida.”

Hear that? Charlie is manning up and preparing to accept the bitter disappointment of only being governor of the fourth largest state — due to overtake New York in third place by 2010 — if he must.

This guy is showing the GOP stuff of which he is made more and more lately. Earlier in the same interview, Crist said that even though the drilling he welcomes off the Florida coasts would be out in federal waters, only Florida should decide whether to allow it. Because Floridians are, you know, hurting.

“[The current price of gas] is a significant crunch on Florida families,” he said. “And I think the difficult decision that I have to make, as somebody who cares about the environment, is to realise that my fellow Floridians are hurting financially right now.”

And we’ll still be hurting if we drill, we’ll just be hurting and cleaning up oil spills.

The big lie in all this drilling discussion is that it will do anything but benefit oil companies. Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, and all the rest will be selling that Florida oil in the world market, most likely to China and India.

But hey, Charlie has shown he’d rather take credit for looking like he cares than actually doing anything meaningful, which makes him the perfect running mate for John McCain. The two of them can enjoy fleecing their contributors right up to November…when Barack Obama wins.